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George Russell is starting to garner applause from everyone for his stint at Mercedes this season. This time around, it's former F1 driver John Watson who praises the new Mercedes driver.
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John is especially impressed with the way George Russell has conducted himself this season as the young driver respects Lewis Hamilton's legacy and has not tried to take away the spotlight from him. When talking to racingnews365.com, Watson said,
"I think you can't state highly enough what he has done in the first four races. I think the way he's conducted himself within the team and within the media... he's not standing in the front and taking the limelight, he's respecting Lewis' legacy. At the same time, he's doing an absolutely blinding job, and his drive [at Imola] on Sunday was an outstanding drive."
George Russell would have done a similar job in traffic as Hamilton did in Imola
Talking about the race in Imola, John Watson alluded to the situation where Lewis Hamilton got stuck in the traffic down the order and could not make any progress while Russell ended the race in fourth.
Watson felt that if the circumstances had been reversed and Russell was stuck behind a bunch of cars, he would have faced the same fate as Hamilton. He also highlighted that, unlike the Brazilian GP last season where Lewis made his way through the entire field to win the race, he wasn't able to do that in Imola because the machinery does not hold that kind of advantage anymore.
"Had the circumstances been the other way around, would George have done a better job than Lewis behind Gasly or not? I suspect probably not. George had a very good first lap and gained positions, and found himself in a much easier situation than Lewis. Lewis found himself bogged down in the middle of cars; he's got cars around him, behind him, on top of him"
"If that had been in last year's car, as we saw [in the Sprint race] in Brazil, he would have picked them off, but he's not on that car. He hasn't got that advantage over his competitors that he had in 2021."
Lewis Hamilton is currently 21 points behind his teammate George Russell, which has surprised many in the paddock and turned the seven-time champion into a target for criticism.
