What happened back during the era of legends Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost is way too much possible to happen again. Now that Mercedes has two alpha drivers, one who is the seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton. And second, George Russell, who defeated a seven-time world champion with the same car, chances for the rise of a new star are more than the comeback of the old one.
F1 pundit Peter Windsor recently came out to figure out that Russell, who defeated Hamilton in the driver’s standings in 2022 by 34 points, is very much likely to have an advantage over the 103 GP winner in qualifying. This is very similar to the long-gone situation of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost from Maclaren in the past. Since George Russell joined the eighth-time constructor’s champion team, he never failed to make team Principal Toto Wolff proud of the decision to replace Valtteri Bottas with him. In the last season, when Mercedes was drowning, it was the 25-year-old ex-Williams driver who saved the team from rounding off winless. Russell won the Brazilian Grand Prix 2022, the first win in his very first year. Incredible!
Even in the 2023 season, which was supposed to be a comeback for Lewis Hamilton, it is not him but George Russell who is receiving praise from fans. He succeeded in outqualifying Hamilton in all the five races held so far. In the last Grand Prix at Miami, the elder Briton starting from the 13th of the grid, ended up on P6 while Russell finished the Miami circuit at P4, 18 seconds ahead of his teammate.
“George Russell Is Better Than Lewis Hamilton,” F1 Pundit Explains Why
Recently, Peter Windsor acknowledged in a YouTube stream that George Russell is no weaker as compared to Bottas. Valtteri was no better than Hmailton anywhere but George; he is. According to him, “He (George) is better than Hamilton, just in the same way as Senna was better than Prost in qualifying races.” However, Peter clarified that he has no judgment. It is just incredibly fine.
Speaking of the qualifying laps, the F1 pundit explained how George is doing a lot better than Hamilton. He compared them as, if Lewis leaves three centimeters, George will leave one-and-a-half on a qualifying lap. However, sometime, it may turn out to be errors like that in Baku. Leaving no margin, the younger Briton is driving just his way, “sometimes getting better than Hamilton,” believes Windsor.
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Besides, he further explained that it is where you can possibly argue that George Russell has the edge over Lewis Hamilton. However, you can take it the other way too. You can say that Hamilton’s quality is that he makes more on top of the car. No matter what the seven-time world champion will always be better than anyone else in terms of avoiding the silly mistakes that Russell could not when he is right on edge.
Hamilton is not a god, and he makes mistakes too. But this involves little outcomes like getting the traffic wrong, the tyre warm-ups, judgment calls, tyre pressure, and expecting things. These are the problems that he faces, and this gives an advantage to his teammates to outperform him.
