Mercedes left the Canadian Grand Prix with their best result of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
However, there was a tinge of disappointment in George Russell’s voice despite achieving his first podium of the year and Lewis Hamilton called the race one of his worst in F1 after finishing fourth.
Former F1 world champion Damon Hill was speaking on the Sky Sports F1 Podcast about the situation at Mercedes.
The German manufacturer are in a unique position on the grid knowing that their star driver is heading to rivals Ferrari next year.
That puts a unique pressure on George Russell with Toto Wolff relying on the Brit to lead the team in the future.
However, Hill spotted something in Canada that suggests Wolff might be ‘undermining’ Russell at times.
It’s something that the pair will need to work on especially if Mercedes finally have a car that’s capable of winning Formula 1 races once again.
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Damon Hill shares what Toto Wolff is doing to undermine Mercedes star George Russell
For the final time this season, Mercedes appeared to have a race-winning car in Canada.
George Russell set an identical lap time to Max Verstappen in qualifying and in treacherous conditions managed to hold onto the lead on a wet track.
However, it became obvious once conditions began to dry that Lando Norris’s McLaren was the fastest car.
He quickly caught up to the back of Russell and Verstappen and a few laps later was in the lead.
It was only a poorly timed safety car that denied Norris his second victory of the season but what would have worried Wolff was the mistake Russell made when he was in the lead of the race.
He ended up running wide and gifting Verstappen a position and later in the race Russell made a similar mistake that allowed Norris to pass him again.
Hill believes that while Russell does make the odd mistake, the advice Wolff gives him over Mercedes’s team radio isn’t always the most helpful.
However, that doesn’t mean that the debate over whether Russell is good enough to be the lead driver at Mercedes once Hamilton departs.
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Asked if Russell makes too many mistakes, Hill said: “Nobody’s perfect, are they?
“I think the problem with George [Russell] is that he started off in a high-profile seat before he got to Mercedes he wasn’t making lots of mistakes but he gets to the sharp end and you get the focus and everyone’s watching everything you do and criticising everything much more viciously.
“I think it can be slightly undermining if you’re getting coached by your team boss over the radio during the race, being told to focus, I think he knows what he’s doing.
“I do think this is a problem for George because he’s been there at Mercedes and they’ve not been on a great run, but he’s definitely doing the job for them and Lewis [Hamilton] is off to Ferrari next year.
“He’s trying to establish himself as the lead driver and he’s yet to achieve that because they’re talking all the time over who’s going to be his teammate for next year rather than talking up George.
“Mercedes ought to back him a bit harder, they ought to give him a bit more confidence and then perhaps he doesn’t have to try so hard to prove himself in the race.”
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Who will join George Russell at Mercedes in 2025?
Toto Wolff has had his sights set on two drivers to replace Lewis Hamilton next year despite Carlos Sainz being on the market.
The first is Max Verstappen and while there are several reasons why he could still leave at the end of the year, that looks incredibly unlikely.
The other driver is Kimi Antonelli who is the prodigy coming through the Mercedes academy.
Jacques Villeneuve has suggested Wolff has made a decision based on his ego by potentially choosing Antonelli.
Antonelli is being worked hard in tests behind the scenes and he will hope that’s enough to step up to Formula 1 after a decent but unspectacular start to life in F2.
If Russell is paired with the Italian rookie, the pressure will be on him to lead the team into the final season before the new 2026 regulations are introduced.
The post ‘Nobody’s perfect’: Damon Hill shares what Toto Wolff is doing that’s ‘undermining’ George Russell at Mercedes appeared first on F1 Oversteer.