Don’t think George Russell Can Beat Lewis Hamilton – Valtteri Bottas

Valtteri Bottas left the Mercedes AMG team at the end of the 2021 season to join the Alfa Romeo Racing. Bottas got 10 wins under his belt during his 5 years tenure with the German team. But he could not fill the elusive world championship like his former teammate Lewis Hamilton.

With Bottas moving to Alfa Romeo, former Williams driver George Russell is to partner with Hamilton at Mercedes for the 2022 season. Having seen his Mr Saturday performances, many have claimed that Russell will challenge Hamilton more frequently than Bottas ever did. In all fairness, Russell did out-qualify Sir Lewis Hamilton for the Belgian Grand Prix, despite being in a Williams.

But the Finnish driver mentioned that it would be difficult for Russell to beat Hamilton in the same car.

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I don’t see anyone who can beat Lewis Hamilton in the near future: Bottas

As reported by Motorsport.es, Bottas has firsthand experience of what it is like to go against the 7-time world champion in the same car. He revealed it was almost impossible to beat the Mercedes driver behind the same wheel.

“I don’t see anyone who can beat Lewis in the near future behind the wheel of a car like his. George will be able to adapt well to the team, as he has been a Mercedes driver for a number of years. But beating Lewis is not easy – I experienced it myself,” said Valtteri.

“His consistency throughout the campaign is practically impossible to match. For example, even when he has a bad day, it doesn’t mean he will make a mistake. His average level of performance is always very high, in all situations,” said the Alfa Romeo driver.

Valtteri is right in mentioning that it is almost too big a task to beat Hamilton in the same car. But we have not seen George go up against arguably the greatest driver of all time just yet. Maybe the young British driver can surprise us and actually take the fight to his experienced and older teammate.

We have to wait until the beginning of the pre-season testing to get an idea about Russell’s position against Hamilton. But we also have to give some time to the new Mercedes driver to get his foot in with the team.

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