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Formula 1 will get a glimpse of its post-Lewis Hamilton future at the Sakhir Grand Prix this Sunday.
With the 2020 champion currently isolating after testing positive for COVID-19, Mercedes protege and heir apparent to the next Silver Arrows seat George Russell will make his debut for the most dominant team in F1 history.
It’s a chance Russell has been waiting on for a while – and a complete change of pace from his usual Williams duties – but what is the likelihood of him taking victory, let alone just recording his first-ever F1 points?
Charles Leclerc, who raced with Russell on and off – in karting, Formula Renault 2.0 Alps and European Formula 3 – before they made their way to F1, had his say on Thursday.
“For George, it’s an amazing opportunity,” said Leclerc. “I’ve known him since a lot of years, we were team-mates [in the Intrepid karting factory team in 2011] with Alex [Albon] and now he finally has the opportunity to race for a top team.
“I don’t know for how long, whether it will be for one weekend or two. I think he will show how much of a good driver he is this weekend.
“Of course, he has shown it before that but now having the opportunity to be fighting further up with probably the best car out there is a great opportunity for him and I hope he’ll do well.”
When asked what he felt Russell was capable of, Leclerc then made his bold call.
“For me, a podium at least,” he said. “But I have some hope of a win.
“It’s very optimistic but I know he is very good and yeah, I could bet on a win.”
Our writers give their verdict on a big weekend for Russell – and an even bigger one for Valtteri Bottas.
‘I’ll be impressed but not amazed’
Mark Hughes
Can George win this race? Absolutely he can. He’s in the equal fastest car (with Bottas) and is a super-quick driver.
In terms of understanding the structure of a grand prix weekend, how you put things together, the pressure points of a weekend and how you play them etc, he’s only doing the same job as he’s done in the last two seasons in the Williams, just sped-up a little! He’s also very embedded into the team already, something built up over the past few years.
There are any numbers of ways it can go wrong, not necessarily within his control – at this place in particular with its crazy-short lap and the likely issue of traffic in qualifying.
But those things apply to every other victory contender. The chances of a newness issue between car and driver intervening with such short-notice stand-in should be acknowledged. Will his too-small racing boots (required to fit his size 11s into the car’s pedal box) prove to be a crucial issue, for example?
We should also acknowledge that logically Valtteri Bottas is the overwhelming logical favourite to win this race. But is it possible that Russell can overturn the logic by sheer all-out performance? Yes. If he wins on Sunday I’d be impressed. But not amazed. Percentage chance of a Russell win? 40%.
A very, very close second
Valentin Khorounzhiy
The Outer Loop is clearly a low-downforce configuration. The closest point of comparison would therefore seem to be Monza, and at Monza – an 80-second lap – Mercedes was on pole by eight tenths.
A front-row qualifying, therefore, should be extremely possible for Russell, which means a good start could easily place him in the lead. And though Bottas’ race pace should theoretically be markedly better, the Finn has never really convinced when running in traffic during his time at Mercedes, and could find repassing Russell impossible.
Does that make Russell favourite? Absolutely not, no. But I suspect he might be second-likeliest to win, and a very close second at that.
If everything falls into place…
Gary Anderson
I’m backing Russell for a strong result in his first race with Mercedes. I think he can be on the podium. He has the talent, without doubt, he might just need to temper his enthusiasm on Sunday. He needs to realise that the race won’t be won on the first lap.
Can he win? Yes, but it will take a little bit of help from the others. Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen – plus a few others – will be out to show they can be the main man when Hamilton is missing but this is a new circuit and a new sort of discipline, with it being more of a high-speed oval. It’s anyone’s game when it comes to getting their act together quickly and coping with driving a car with low downforce.
And after all, that’s what Russell has been doing admirably all season.
Not the same situation as Barcelona 2016
Glenn Freeman
The first thing that came to mind when thinking about this was the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix: Max Verstappen’s win on debut for Red Bull.
If Verstappen could do that once the only two drivers in faster cars than him had wiped themselves out on the opening lap, why can’t Russell win in Bahrain with a similar lack of preparation and no faster cars in the race from the off?
But I don’t think he will. There aren’t any faster cars on the grid, but there is someone else with a car as fast: Bottas. For a while now the Finn has looked like a man who needs this season to end, but Hamilton’s absence means he needs to click everything back into gear and execute a clean weekend. If he does that, Russell will have to make do with ‘only’ a podium finish if things go well – and that will do nicely.
While there are similarities with Verstappen’s 2016 Red Bull call-up, he’d at least been racing properly for points finishes pretty regularly with Toro Rosso up to that point.
Russell is an accomplished racer-from-the-front from his junior days, but a season battling nobody in 2019 and then combining Saturday heroics with scratching and clawing to stay near the fringes of the points on Sundays mean his time in F1 so far couldn’t be further from the kind of race execution he’ll need to master first time out this weekend.
I hope I’m wrong. Verstappen’s Spain win was an incredible story, and Russell’s would be even more remarkable given the machinery he’s had to put up with so far in F1.
A podium still a job well done
Edd Straw
It’s not necessarily realistic to expect Russell to win, and it’s certainly not reasonable to do so. But I completely understand where Charles Leclerc is coming from because Russell is the kind of driver capable of pulling off something extraordinary.
He’s in the best car in the field, so by definition it’s possible. He knows the Mercedes engine package, he’s fully race-sharp and he does know how to run at the front and win from his time in racing before F1, even if he’s never finished higher than 11th in a grand prix.
There’s endless subtleties to master, whether it’s getting on top of the bewildering range of different tools for the driver to fine tune from corner to corner or the intricacies of the start, so there’s lots to trip him up. But he’s an intelligent, rounded character who has the right mentality to master this despite the fact he’s had little preparation time and must wear raceboots that are a size too small.
There’s a ‘cometh the hour’ quality to those capable of being the best in sport. There are hints that Russell has the potential to be something special in F1 and this is his first chance to show he can win. But doesn’t mean that he will and, realistically, even a second or third place would represent a job very well done.
It’s also important to note that Bottas is a superb driver. His only crime is that he isn’t Hamilton, so an on-form Bottas is formidable in his own right. But he has had races where things have unravelled for him this year. Simply being close to Bottas would be a triumph, but we cannot completely rule out something more than that.
And you can bet that, for all his measured, sensible public pronouncements, if Russell sees an opportunity to pull off a victory, he will attempt to seize it. That’s what Leclerc sees – the possibility for a touch of magic in a driver, the same magic Leclerc himself has. And I can see evidence of that too.
Look back to F2 for all the proof you need
Jack Benyon
Anyone know what happened the last time George Russell lowered himself into the cockpit of a Mercedes in Bahrain? He was fastest! And he can be again.
That was in the April test last year when he also shared a car with Hamilton, under better circumstances. It also means little in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a funny fact.
To get a picture of whether Russell can succeed, we can go back to the last time he was in a frontrunning car, which was in his F2 title winning year.
That 2018 season, despite driving the new car for the first time and despite numerous issues with the car’s tricky clutch and questionable reliability, he effectively destroyed a field which contained two drivers – Lando Norris and Alex Albon – who have been in faster machinery in F1 since the trio’s arrival.
Well, not anymore.
Russell has always been driven, but seeing those two rivals emerge more successful will have lit a fire, which has been stoked by two years of underachievement due to his Williams machinery.
That motivation will simmer to a boil this weekend when George gets the chance. Few realise how good he really is, but they soon will. And no one will deserve it more.
‘He’s driving a Mercedes!’
Scott Mitchell
Of course he can win. He’s driving a Mercedes!
If he does, he will not win from pole. And it rests on qualifying on the front row, maybe the second, and seeing what opportunities arise.
Russell’s very good, he’ll handle it extremely well, and I’m sure do the equipment justice. So he should qualify near the front. Plus he’s got a team-mate who has had a barrage of bad luck this year! And, more relevantly, has had a few bad starts…
So if Russell can get track position, and he’s close to getting the maximum performance out of his situation, I reckon he can hold on.
I say “getting the most out of his situation” because that’s not the same as getting the most out of the car. Russell’s position is one that has a slightly reduced upper limit. It has to have that, given he’s being parachuted in, has a lot to learn about the car, and is not entirely comfortable physically.
But his level is so high that even that reduced upper limit could be enough to cause Bottas some problems.
