George William Russell (; born 15 February 1998) is a British racing driver who competes in Formula One for Mercedes. Russell has won Formula One Grands Prix across eight seasons.
Born and raised in King's Lynn, Russell began competitive kart racing aged seven. After a successful karting career—culminating in back-to-back victories at the junior European Championship in 2011 and 2012—Russell graduated to junior formulae. He won his first title at the 2014 BRDC F4 Championship. He then won the 2017 GP3 Series and the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship back-to-back with ART, becoming the fifth driver to win the GP2/Formula 2 championship in their rookie season and the second driver to win both titles in their respective rookie seasons.
A member of the Mercedes Junior Team since 2017, Russell signed for Williams in to partner Robert Kubica, making his Formula One debut at the . He substituted for Lewis Hamilton at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix for Mercedes, but was denied victory due to a team error and a puncture after leading the majority of the race. Russell scored his maiden podium at the curtailed 2021 Belgian Grand Prix with Williams. In , Russell replaced Valtteri Bottas at Mercedes to partner Hamilton; in his first season, Russell achieved his maiden pole position in Hungary and his maiden win in São Paulo, finishing fourth in the World Drivers' Championship. After a winless season for Mercedes in , Russell won the Austrian and Las Vegas Grands Prix in , followed by the Canadian and Singapore Grands Prix in ; in 2024, he also became the first driver in 30 years to be disqualified from a race win. Amidst a new regulation cycle introduced for , Mercedes emerged as the fastest team, with Russell winning the Australian and Austrian Grands Prix, and achieving his first career Grand Slam at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
As of the , Russell has achieved race wins, pole positions, fastest laps, and podiums in Formula One. Russell is contracted to remain at Mercedes until at least the end of the 2026 season.
Early life Russell was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, to father Steve and mother Alison. His father managed a business selling seeds and pulses, which he sold in 2012 to fund his son's junior racing career. Russell is the youngest of three siblings, including sister Cara and brother Benjy. He grew up in Tydd St Giles/Wisbech and Castle Rising.
Russell took up karting at the age of seven, following his brother Benjy, a competitive karter who won the 2007 Super 1 National Kart Championship in the Rotax Max category. Russell picked up his number 63 from the kart his brother rented at the time. Growing up, his father would intentionally overstate his lap times to motivate him to drive faster.
Russell attended Wisbech Grammar School, but shifted to homeschooling so that he could devote more time to his racing career. At 18, he moved to Milton Keynes to be closer to his junior racing team.
Junior racing career Karting (2006–2013) Russell began karting in 2006 and progressed to the cadet class by 2009, becoming MSA British champion and British Open champion. In 2010 he moved to the Rotax Mini Max category where he became Super One British champion, Formula Kart Stars British champion, and also won the Kartmasters British Grand Prix.
Russell graduated to the KF3 class in 2011. He joined the Intrepid karting team with help from Intrepid's Alex Albon; his teammates that year included Albon and Charles Leclerc. Russell became CIK-FIA European Champion and won the SKUSA SuperNationals title, while Leclerc won the Karting World Cup. In 2012, Russell became the first driver in history to successfully defend the Junior European Championship, and nearly defended his SKUSA title following Lance Stroll's disqualification, although Stroll's win was ultimately reinstated. In his final year of karting in 2013, Russell moved up to KF1, finishing 19th in the CIK-FIA World Championship.
Formula 4 (2014) In 2014, Russell made his single-seater debut, simultaneously competing in BRDC Formula 4 (Lanan Racing) and Formula Renault 2.0 Alps (Koiranen GP). He led most of the BRDC F4 season, but lost the points lead to teammate Arjun Maini before the final race at Snetterton, which Formula Scout attributed to a mid-season case of chickenpox. He won that race to claim the title. As a reward, he was granted a GP3 test at Yas Marina.
Formula Renault 2.0 (2014) Russell had a more difficult season in Formula Renault 2.0 Alps. Although he was initially supposed to race for Prema, Lance Stroll's father (Prema's part-owner and main funder) vetoed Russell from the team, even though Stroll was racing in Italian F4 and not Formula Renault. Russell found a landing spot with Koiranen, which dominated the season, scoring 423 points to Prema's 61. However, Russell was outshone by his Koiranen teammate Nyck de Vries (three years his elder), who won nine out of twelve races. Looking back, Russell said that Tech 1 Racing (his other option to replace Prema) would have been a better fit, but strongly praised de Vries, remarking that he "was always one of the very best," and that especially "in go-karting, he was the man to beat."
Russell's season ended on a high note after talent scout Gwen Lagrue (who later recruited him to Mercedes) arranged for him to join Tech 1 for the final round of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season at Jerez. Eurocup was a higher level of competition than Alps. Nonetheless, Russell won the final race of the Eurocup season, holding off a hard-charging de Vries and finishing 23.057 seconds ahead of his Tech 1 teammate Anthoine Hubert.
At the end of the season, Russell won the Autosport BRDC Award after successfully testing Formula Two, DTM, and GT3 cars. At seventeen, he was the youngest-ever winner of the award; the BRDC lowered the entry age to accommodate him. He was also selected for the BRDC's SuperStars junior driver mentorship programme, where he was once again the youngest-ever selection.
Formula Three (2015–2016) 2015: Debut in FIA European F3 and Masters podium
Although Russell was expected to spend 2015 competing full-time in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0, his BRDC Award win prompted him to skip directly to European Formula Three, where he spent the next two years.
In 2015, Russell drove for Carlin, a Volkswagen affiliate. He finished sixth, winning one race and collecting three podiums; PaddockScout opined that his qualifying pace was "his one obvious weak-spot," and that he primarily stood out for his race pace and ability to cleanly overtake other drivers. He was second in the Rookies' Championship, behind Charles Leclerc, although fellow rookie Lance Stroll finished above him in the overall classification (the Rookies' Championship re-scores each race to remove non-rookies). He also finished second at the 2015 Masters of Formula 3 exhibition race, behind Antonio Giovinazzi.
2016: Third in Europe with Hitech In 2016, Russell switched to Hitech GP, a new Mercedes affiliate which was competing in its first full European Formula Three season. That year, Prema allegedly received special engines from Mercedes and technical support (including a suspension upgrade) from Williams. Stroll (whose family was funding Prema) cruised to the title, with Russell finishing third, behind Prema drivers Stroll and Maximilian Günther. Nonetheless, Mercedes was impressed by Russell's performances and signed him to its driver academy at the end of the season. After making it to Formula One, Russell questioned the fairness of the 2016 competition, stating that it was "almost laughable to see ... how wrong that championship was."
Mercedes Junior Team
As Russell advanced through the junior pyramid, the costs of racing grew significantly. He estimated that it cost "£50K a year if you want to compete, £200K if you want to win." Steve Russell spent roughly £1.5m to fund his son's junior career. When Russell was sixteen, his father explained that he could not keep on funding him and that Russell needed to find a junior driver programme. (Not long after that, Russell faced an £800K bill for a single Formula Two season.)
Russell applied for a spot on the Mercedes Junior Team. Unlike modern Formula One driver academies, Mercedes signed only one driver at a time, although it funded additional drivers on a short-term basis. To sway Mercedes leadership, Russell prepared a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation explaining why the team should sign him.
To audition Russell for a full-time academy spot, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff offered to fund Russell's 2015 European Formula Three season. However, Mercedes's top F3 affiliate was Prema, from which Russell had already been vetoed. Russell chose Volkswagen, which did not have a Formula One team at the time. At season's end, BMW offered him a DTM drive, but Mercedes persuaded him to bet on himself, offering him funding for a second F3 season and making him the senior team's simulator driver. Russell switched to a Mercedes-powered F3 team for 2016.
In early 2017, Russell officially joined the Mercedes Junior Team. Wolff "set hard targets" for Russell, asking him to win the GP3 and Formula 2 titles before progressing to Formula One.
GP3 Series (2017)
With financial help from Mercedes, Russell secured a drive with ART Grand Prix for the 2017 season. ART was GP3's dominant team, having won six of the last seven team titles. In 2017, it swept the top four places in the standings.
Russell won the title as a rookie, scoring four wins and finishing 79 points ahead of the second-placed Jack Aitken. He locked up the title with two races to go. Notable races included a dominant performance at Spa-Francorchamps (a win, a second place, two poles, and two fastest laps) and a close three-way battle at Monza. FIA Formula 2 (2018)
ART promoted Russell to its Formula Two team for the 2018 season. In addition, Mercedes promoted Russell to first-team reserve driver, sharing duties with Pascal Wehrlein. The 2018 F2 grid was "possibly the strongest field of the last decade", and featured several future F1 racers, including Lando Norris, Alex Albon, Nyck de Vries, and Nicholas Latifi.
ART did not carry over its lopsided dominance from the prior year's F3 season, as Norris's Carlin took the teams' championship. Although Formula Two is a spec series and every engine is built by the same company, Russell, Albon, and Norris agreed that in practice, teams had engines of varying quality. Albon and Norris said that Russell had the best engine that year, while Russell and Albon said that Norris's engine was very competitive early in the season. (0:35-1:12) After ten races, Norris led the standings. Russell heated up at midseason, finishing either first or second in five out of six races. He qualified in the top four at all but one race (where he had engine trouble). He won the title, finishing 68 points ahead of the second-placed Norris.
With his title, Russell became the fifth rookie champion of the GP2/F2 category (previously achieved by Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hülkenberg, and Charles Leclerc), the fourth driver to win the GP3/F3 and GP2/F2 titles in consecutive seasons (after Hamilton, Hülkenberg and Leclerc), and the second driver to win both of these titles as a rookie (after Leclerc). Oscar Piastri and Gabriel Bortoleto subsequently matched each of these feats.
Formula One career In October 2015, Russell drove a Formula One car for the first time, when he tested the McLaren MP4-26 at Silverstone as a prize for winning the 2014 Autosport BRDC Award. After he joined the Mercedes Junior Team, Mercedes gave him more testing opportunities. He drove a Mercedes for the first time in April 2017, testing the 2015 Mercedes W06 at Portimão. He then conducted formal test drives for Mercedes (2017 and 2018) and Force India-Mercedes (2018).