F1 News: Mika Hakkinen Believes George Russell Can Stay Ahead Of Lewis Hamilton

The former F1 champion has said Russell has all the potential to be a great driver.

Two-time F1 champion Mika Hakkinen has said that Mercedes' newest driver George Russell has shown enough performance to keep seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton behind him. 

Russell joined the Mercedes team in 2022 and despite the many issues the team had with the W13 cars, he showed fantastic performance throughout the year. During the first half of the season he was quickly branded 'Mr. Consistency' for constantly coming in the top 5 and he went on to get his first career win at the Brazilian Grand Prix. 

The British driver came fourth in the driver's championship with 275 points ahead of Hamilton who came sixth with 240 points. 

During an interview with Top Gear Magazine, former F1 driver Mika Hakkinen has praised Russell for his "really impressive" performance. Hakkinen explained:

“What he did in Brazil, it was brilliant. If he can keep with that experience what he has in Mercedes, and experience what he has in Formula 1 in general, he can keep Lewis behind. It’s really impressive.

“Because Lewis is incredible. Incredible personality, incredible driver. So if George can go for it, then I think England can look like ‘Wow, what a driver we have.”

Hakkinen continued to discuss the possibility of Russell becoming a World Champion one day. He said:

“The list is unbelievably long when you start fine-tuning every aspect of being a racing driver. But he has already a massively long career behind him.

“Talking about karting, all those other categories, and his knowledge of data, his capabilities handling the car in extreme situations… I am confident he has all the potential to be a great driver, potentially becoming a World Champion.”

The 2023 F1 season starts with the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday 5th March with the pre-season testing the week before. The team have just revealed the release date of the highly anticipated W14, which fans are hopeful will put the 2022 issues behind them.