Lewis Hamilton told by Sebastian Vettel: “George Russell has talent and skill to become champion”
Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Russell combined to battle their W13 car’s issues with porpoising and performance throughout a drab 2022, a year in which they were largely helpless to stop 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Max Verstappen winning a second consecutive F1 title.
Hamilton did not win a single race for the first time in his career, while Russell won his first-ever grand prix in Brazil. Russell, in fourth, finished ahead of Hamilton in the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:F1 standings and has been bullish ab💫out his own ambitions next yea🐻r.
Four-time champion Vettel told Sky about Russell’s hopes: "It's so difficult to say. But if he gets the right car, the right equipment, the right team - and I think he's in 🌳a good place - then yeah I thi꧃nk he's got the talent and skill.
"There's more than talent and skill needed but he see﷽ms to be hard-working, so yes he's got a good ch𓆉ance."
Russell warned that he was comingꦫ to claim the champions𒐪hip for himself.
“I feel absolutely ready to win a world championship," he told Sky in Abu Dhabi. "I've felt ready for a couple ♍of years now.
"I think having this season next to Lewis has been huge for me personally to learn some of the little details, how to get more out of my car, more out o🙈f my team, and extracting everything out of the package when it truly matters.
"And I'm definitely going to have a really strong winter. I'm going to work r♏eally hardౠ with my team. Every single person at Mercedes' factory is going to be pushing like hell to deliver a car, to give us a chance to go fight next season.
"I guess if you told me that at the start of the year, I would hဣave been extraordinarily happy because if you beat Lewis Hamilton in a Merceꦅdes, most of the time that means you will be a world champion.
"Obviously, I would takeꦇ the positives away from the season, but I'm not going to celebrate finishing P4 in the championship.
"I'm going to celebrate winning the race in Brazil because that was 🐼a huge achievement for myself and the whole team. But the fact is, we're all here to win and we're here to win world championships. So we've not done a perfect job this season. We've had a rela𒁏tively clean and smooth season with the car and package we've had.
"But to the standards this team set, some standards I set myself - it's not good enough and we need to go on nex✃t year and giv🍸e it more."
James was a sports journalist at S🙈ky Sports for a decade 🌳covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
