Will Eagerly Ambitious George Russell Outshine Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1’s 2024 Season?

Ambition is woven into the fabric of every Formula 1 driver. They beat all their competitors to become part of the elite 20, and once you do, everyone is equal. At least that’s the mentality every F1 driver carries or needs to or their rival would annihilate them. Now, as we all know, your teammate is your first and biggest rival in the world of F1. So every driver needs to have that self-belief even if they’re paired against a world champion in their rookie season. We know Lewis Hamilton had that level of confidence and he showed it to the world. However, 15 years later, did he meet his match?

We are talking about George Russell who became a Mercedes driver in 2022 and albeit not a rookie, he beat his seven-time world championship-winning teammate in the first season together. The young Brit also secured Mercedes’s only win in the past two seasons, which did more bad than good. However, it’s the two different mentalities that make the difference for us and in this piece based on personal perspective, we will highlight whether Russell’s sky-high ambitions will help him beat Hamilton in 2024.

Will George Russell beat Lewis Hamilton in the upcoming Formula 1 championship season?

Russell’s approach to go into the Mercedes team and treat Hamilton as he would any other teammate and not be intimidated by him was bang on. That gave him the confidence to go toe-toe with his world-champion teammate and perform at his best. The consistent top 5 finishes at the start of 2022 furthered his self-belief and he started feeling at par with his teammate. Now, feeling something and truly believing it, telling yourself that is the truth is what confidence is in essence. So after the 2022 season, in Russell’s mind, he was as fast and as good as Hamilton.

However, after getting incessant complaints and getting Mercedes to abandon the zero pod concept, Hamilton started showcasing his racing mettle. This is when Russell started feeling the pressure and his performances, in comparison, started on a downward trajectory. Hamilton’s slowly warming up to the troubled Mercedes challenger snapped Russell back to reality. Hamilton started feeling better in the car after struggling with it for an entire and some and he started putting Russell in place.

However, by the 2023 season, Russell already had the confidence of a championship-winning driver and he believes he would’ve been closer to his teammate had it not been for all the points he lost in the season. Russell admitted as quoted by SpeedWeek: “I lost important points too often. The engine failure in Melbourne cost me a place in the top three. At Zandvoort, the race didn’t go against us in mixed conditions. In Singapore, I put third place into the wall. In Canada, I also made a mistake and lost ten points again. In Baku, I messed up the re-start.”

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More error-free driving and the young Brit will be right up there with his teammate, unlike 2023 where he was 59 points and five places behind. However, it is easier said than done.

Lewis Hamilton will be unstoppable with the right car

In his 16 long years in Formula 1, Hamilton has been beaten by his teammate only thrice, in 2011, 2016, and 2022. Perhaps the only time he was extremely comfortable in his car and was outclassed on sheer skill was back in 2016. So the outcome of the 2022 season was inconsequential for a man chasing only one thing in the sport, another championship. We are also aware of how Hamilton spent most of the 2022 season experimenting to help the team understand the car better. His sacrifice paid dividends as well. Now the moment of truth will come in 2024.

For 2024, Mercedes revealed they will embark on a completely different developmental journey and scrap the W14 with only relevant parts being used for W15. If Hamilton gets a car he feels comfortable in, which he hasn’t in the past two seasons, he will be back to his brilliant best. He will be back to the levels he has maintained for all these years and no amount of ambition will be able to catch him. This is exactly what David Coulthard also pointed out.

He said, “George is doing a brilliant job, [he is an] absolute asset for the team. That’s not to say Lewis isn’t doing a brilliant job, it just means that the car isn’t talking to him right now and when it does, expect him to be showing George why he won seven World Championships.”

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The seven-time world champion has his set on only the title. This state Hamilton is in, he doesn’t care about beating his teammate and Russell’s desire to push to the limit to beat his teammate is the difference between the two approaches. This is exactly why despite Russell’s best attempts, if Hamilton gets the car he wants, he will be in a different league fighting for the championship and Russell won’t be able to keep up.

Editorial Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of EssentiallySports.