George Russell: The Target of Unfair Hate during a Successful Career?

ROHAN SINGH - STAFF WRITER

Six wins and 26 podiums. These may not look like the numbers for a world champion, but these numbers were the foundation that Mercedes relied on in the era when their engineering magic was unable to work. Ever since George Russell joined Mercedes-AMG F1 in 2022, he has been running at the top of his game.

Russell was regularly matching, sometimes even beating, a seven-time world champion for a teammate like Lewis Hamilton, who made sure that the Silver Arrows revolved around him for the past decade.

In 2022, when Mercedes was lagging behind severely compared to their competitors, Russell brought them a much-needed boost of confidence with a victory in Sao Paolo. Eventually, his performance and regular podiums brought him on par with Lewis Hamilton. While there’s no doubt that Hamlinton was offered a better deal with Ferrari, the paradigm shift at Mercedes was pretty visible. Russell was now holding the reins to the team.

Yet, for some reason he is now among the most hated drivers by the Formula 1 community. Russell is definitely the least favorite of the two Silver Arrows in this year’s championship race.

And that’s not a bad thing at all. There have been drivers who have had their dominant eras and then switched to another team. Nobody blamed Kimi Raikkonen when he came in to replace the ‘Kaiser’ Michael Schumacher at Ferrari. In fact, people welcomed him wholeheartedly and celebrated him as the cool Finn who spoke less with words and more with lap times.

So what exactly went wrong with the British driver at Mercedes? For starters, let’s isolate some core incidents that earned him criticism before his time at Mercedes.

The first cracks in the perfect armor

There’s a certain aspect of George Russell’s personality. One might call him polite. Someone else would call him mildly annoying and a goody-two-shoes. Now, it’s up to George Russell to decide what adjective he wants to associate with. But since he tries to come off as someone with a lot of discipline and verbal control, he is scrutinized even more for the same.

In 2020, he was running in a good position to score a points finish with Williams at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. But a slight miscalculation on his part sent his car spinning into the barriers while the entire grid was still following the safety car. It was a genuine mistake, but it also lost him a huge chance. Russell had joined the grid in 2019 with Williams.

At that time, Williams was barely a competitive team running on a small budget and arguably facing their worst stint in Formula 1 as a team. So scoring points was not a matter of when; it was a matter of how. And Russell already lost his first chance at that. The memes and jokes followed, but they were not as harmful as one would expect.

Three races later that year, Russell was called to Mercedes F1 to replace Lewis Hamilton for one weekend during the Sakhir Grand Prix. And that Sunday, Russell showed a masterclass of Formula 1 racing. Starting the race from the front row, it didn’t take him long before he overtook teammate Valtteri Bottas and set out on a lonely crusade to lead the race. 

Although a tire puncture forced him to lose out on a much-deserved win, Russell had proved that he was not a driver who should be taken lightly.

But next year, something happened that flared the tensions even more. Once again at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, George Russell found himself crashing out. Although this time, he took Valtteri Bottas out with him in a high-speed accident. After the two drivers were beached in the gravel, Russell hopped out and immediately confronted the Finn who was still in his car.

Bottas, who claimed that he couldn’t understand Russell, showed him the finger to ward him off. And the Brit did not appreciate this gesture. He walked away, but not before slapping away at Bottas’ helmet. The incident was not highlighted too much among the stewards, and the entire Mercedes camp, including Russell and Bottas, buried the hatchet.

The audience, however, was not ready to forgive him for the same. Valtteri Bottas already had a cult following due to his quirky personality and nonchalant demeanor. So when Russell went up against him and crashed him out, only to hit him on the helmet for what was apparently his mistake, the fans were quick to reward him with their hatred. They attributed his behavior to the fact that Bottas is his rival for a seat at Mercedes.

Later on, when Russel scored his first points in F1 in Hungary, he was rather emotional about the same. To his advantage, given the gravity of the situation and seeing how he was unbothered by helping out his team and finishing behind him, people forgave him once again.

The bane of the spotlight

Driving for an underdog team gives a driver a slight respite in terms of general criticism. No one expects them to finish in a stunning manner with the type of car they drive. For Russell, this was the same. Williams was clearly a backmarker team, and people didn’t hold his occasional slip-ups to heart.

But when he joined Mercedes in 2022, the scenario changed drastically. Theoretically, Russell was in the big leagues now. The team he was driving for was bound to return to the front row, one way or another. Moreover, his teammate was one of the best drivers in the sport’s history. So every time Russell made a silly mistake, or every time the team preferred him over Lewis Hamilton, people’s frustration grew slightly more.

It's not like Russell was Mr. Perfect either. Sure, he made mistakes like the 2023 Singapore Grand Prix, where he threw away a win under pressure. But let's get real; even a fan favorite like Kimi Antonelli has made mistakes, and every driver on the grid has made similar mistakes in the past. That doesn't make them the villain on the grid.

By the end of Hamilton’s stint at Mercedes and his impending departure to Ferrari, many were convinced that somehow Russell had taken over Mercedes and the Silver Arrows were sabotaging Hamilton’s car. A far-fetched idea, but it is not uncommon. After all, controversies and conspiracy theories are also a core part of the F1 fandom.

Besides his new seat, Russell had also claimed a new role in the sport. In 2021, he was named the director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association. The GPDA was formed to relay the paddock’s concerns to the FIA. And Russell in particular used to be particularly aligned with the stewards. He didn’t mind trying to convince the stewards in the situations that involved him.

This caused some fans to harbor resentment for Russell. And if one superstar fandom wasn’t enough, Russell was also on the radar of another, more unforgiving fandom—the Orange Army.

Max Verstappen’s aggressive nature ensures that he has run-ins with almost every driver on the grid. And his fans brutally demolish any driver who so much as looks the wrong way towards Verstappen. So imagine when a driver ends up going head to head with Max and then lobbies in front of the stewards to get him a penalty post-contact.

George Russell went through the same in 2024. During the Qatar Grand Prix, Verstappen ended up impeding Russell during the qualifying session. Russell did not like the idea of Verstappen trying to do the same and reported it to the stewards. The way Russell behaved during their conversation was probably the biggest factor that led fans to harbor so much hatred towards him from then on.

“Honestly, very disappointing because I think we're all here, we respect each other a lot, and of course, I've been in that meeting room many times in my life, in my career, with people that I’ve raced, and I've never seen someone trying to screw someone over that hard. And that for me… I lost all respect,” Verstappen revealed later on when asked about his feelings about the penalty.

Those words were like a chain reaction that exploded a nuclear bomb. For the fans, the villain of the story was ready. Now, all Russell needed to do was exist, and he would become the embodiment of everything wrong in the system. There were memes and hate campaigns against him simply because of his so-called 'goody-two-shoes' nature.

Last year, when the Mercedes started becoming competitive again, Russell ended up moving towards the front row more often than Verstappen. It also meant that he would end up going head to head with the Red Bull ace multiple times during the 2025 season. One such incident took place during the Spanish Grand Prix. Max Verstappen, who was angry at the idea of giving back position to Russell for a false move, ended up slamming his car into Russell’s. Verstappen was aptly penalized for the same. Yet, the fans did not appreciate Russell's comments about Max Verstappen's behavior.

All fans saw was a heroic act from their best driver against a villain like Russell, who did not deserve to race peacefully on the grid. Today, when Mercedes is slowly starting to get ahead of the grid with Russell and Antonelli leading the charge, the entire narrative is being shifted in a manner to suit Antonelli and make him the innocent hero of Mercedes while relegating George Russell to a much more disrespectful and unfair role of being the worse driver in the team.

In my opinion, Russell does not deserve this chain of hate spreading against him through the social media channels and communities. What do you feel about the same?