George Russell believes that Lewis Hamilton would have never left Mercedes had the team been in its current winning form at the time of his decision.
Hamilton will depart Mercedes at the end of the season to join Ferrari, leaving behind a 12-year tenure during which the Briton conquered six of his seven world titles.
Hamilton’s decision came after two difficult years for the Brackley which has struggled to adapt to F1’s regulation ground-effect era introduced in 2022.
But while the former championship winning team suffered a subdued start to its 2024 campaign, it has found its stride lately thanks to a relentless development push that yielded consecutive wins in Austria and at Silverstone, where Hamilton returned to the top step of the podium since Jeddah in 2021.
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"I don't think he would have left if the team was performing like this. No way he would have left, for sure not," contended Russell, speaking to Reuters.
"For 2026 the PU [power unit]'s looking really strong and everything we're doing with the fuels is looking great and there's a lot of optimism for us over the next couple of years.
”As tough as these last few years have been, it really feels like we've got the momentum with us now.”
Reflecting on Hamilton’s shock decision to join Ferrari, Russell reckoned that his teammate was in need of a fresh and exciting challenge.
"I think everybody wants change at some point. He's been here 12 years now, he's achieved so much with the team. I think for him it's exciting to have that change,” he added.
“But of course if the team you're currently with are winning races and everything is looking super great for the future, you just want to be in the fastest car possible and it doesn't matter what colour that is.”
Addressing his team’s change of fortunes, Russell said that “it just kind of feels like the Mercedes of years ago”, while praising the efforts of the team’s technical director James Allison.
"It's never one person but just having James taking all the ideas and steering in the right direction and empowering the people to go and do it has been great,” he said.
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