Fittipaldi praises 'young lion' George Russell's performances at Mercedes so far

Former world champion Emerson Fittipaldi has said that George Russell is a ‘young lion’ with him impressing in the Mercedes this season

Russell remains the only man to have finished inside the top five at every race this campaign after he extended that run at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday.

Indeed, he’s shown real consistency and a fine habit of picking up the pieces when those in front of him suffer reliability issues or incidents, and it’s clear that when he gets a race-winning car he is going to have the talent to use it to its maximum.

Of course, the Merc currently isn’t quite good enough but he is in a top team and eventually the performance will be there, so all he can do right now is continue with his strong individual displays.

Indeed, Fittipaldi is impressed with the Briton, with him telling Vegas Insider:

“George Russell is doing really well. I think he has enough experience in Formula One now.

“Coming from Williams, the Mercedes is much faster, better than the Williams anyway. 

“Then he’s committed to do well, he is focused and to my surprise, is doing well.

“That’s another challenge for Lewis Hamilton, because ‘the young lion is on board’.”

It’s certainly been impressive how quickly Russell has bedded in and achieved good results, especially given the Merc’s current issues.

He looks well at home within the team and you can see why the Silver Arrows identified him as a potential successor to Lewis Hamilton as team leader, with him showing his class on and off the circuit.

He’ll be looking for another positive result in Montreal this weekend, then, as he continues to score good points week in, week out.