George Russell has narrated in depth his first meeting with the Mercedes squad, which was a key milestone towards his Formula 1 career.
Russell famously emailed team principal Toto Wolff following his title in Britain’s Formula 4 championship to try and open doors further up the single-seater ladder, as ever-increasing budget was proving harder to find.
“When I was 16, I realised I had to make my own way,” Russell related in a column for The Players’ Tribune.
“My parents told me that they didn’t have the funds anymore to finance my career. In my head, everything shifted in that moment.
“At 16, two years from being a legal adult, you’re starting to feel like a man, you know? But in that moment, I realised how far I was from that. It was like, ‘It’s time for me to step up and make this happen for myself’.
“At the time, I had the phone numbers of some Formula 1 bosses. So I started calling people, I was emailing people, talking to anybody who would give me the time. My manager had actually gotten Toto’s email from one of his other drivers, but he thought I should be the one to take it, so he gave it to me. He believed in me, so he was like, ‘Get an email sent off quick.’
George Russell, Alex Palou, Dorian Boccolacci
Photo by: CIK/KSP
“I actually remember it very well. It was the Tuesday after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2014. I wrote something like:
Dear Toto,
My name’s George Russell. I race in Formula 4. I’ve just won the championship this season. I’m progressing into Formula 3 next year, and I’d love to sit down with you to have your advice for my future career.
“I didn’t want to send a big CV like, ‘This is me, sign me, sign me, sign me.’ I don’t know why. I just said, ‘I just want to have your advice.’ I thought that was the best way to get face time with him.
“He replied within 15 minutes.
“I’d had some good conversations with McLaren, had prior contacts with Red Bull, but honestly, Toto was just… different. He seemed so genuine.”
George Russell, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
The email exchange led to a meeting at the team’s Brackley headquarters in January 2015.
“Toto always tells a story about me walking in in a suit and tie, carrying a briefcase… I don’t think it was quite as extreme as that,” Russell nuanced.
“Might as well get that on the record. But I definitely had my nicest pair of shoes on. I always used to dress like an old man when I was younger, so I would’ve had a shirt on, and probably a V-neck jumper or something. I looked quite smart as a 16-year-old at the time.
“Anyway, I walked into the room, and there were six other people there who were all the heads of the various departments. Basically, all the top dogs. The head of the junior programme, who’d only just been signed, Gwen Lagrue. The head of the DTM. A couple of other members of the F1 team. Then there was Toto himself.
“It was basically just a conversation for them to get to know me better, and decide whether they wanted to take a bit of a leap of faith doing something different and signing a young driver to, at that point in time, a programme that didn’t exist.
“I think I’d already been on their radar. Basically, I wasn’t just a bloke off the street who sent a nice email. It wasn’t totally out of the blue. They’d already been talking about my potential, they’d just hired Gwen to head up the academy, and everything just clicked.”
Mercedes kept a close eye on Russell for the following two seasons, as the youngster from Norfolk took sixth and third in the European F3 championship. Proving to be an extremely consistent points-scorer as a rookie and frontrunner as a sophomore, despite spending both campaigns away from the dominant Prema outfit.
George Russell, ART Grand Prix
Photo by: GP3 Series Media Service
“When I signed with Mercedes, I was their only academy driver on the books for two years,” he added. “F1 teams now, they’re signing 10 drivers each, spreading their bets. Mercedes went all in on me. They made it clear, ‘We believe in you. This is not a test now. We are here to fulfil your potential.’ They literally said that word for word, and that was immense.”
Russell officially joined Mercedes as a young driver in January 2017. Back-to-back GP3 and F2 titles as a rookie ensued, paving the way for his F1 career with the German brand – which will last until 2026 at the earliest, after a new deal was made official this week.
“When I look back now, it feels like a huge privilege that they had so much faith in me,” the five-time grand prix winner wrote. “They put it on me to perform, but they made it so simple.”
He added, regarding an interaction a few years later, as Russell itched to reach F1: “Toto literally just said to me, ‘George, you perform. I’ll sort the rest.’
“That was pretty simple, but I really internalised it. I’ve applied that advice to every step of my journey since.
“And I still am.”
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