How Mercedes championship win in 2014 opened gates for George Russell in F1?

George Russell signed a multi-year deal until the 2024 season with the Mercedes F1 team and took a seat next to the 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton in the 2022 season.

However, his journey to the front of the Formula 1 grid has not been an easy one. Speaking on the High-Performance podcast, Russell revealed that there even came a time during his struggles in the junior series when he almost ended his career.

But an email from Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff back in 2014 prevented that consequence. At the time, the young Briton had just won the British F4 title but was yet to get any recognition from F1 teams.

Before joining Mercedes, the 24-year-old spent his first three years with the Williams F1 team and even subbed for Hamilton during the 2020 Sakhir GP delivering an impressive performance.

So read: Max Verstappen made Toto Wolff lose his cool during grueling 2021 Championship battle

Mercedes’ 2014 win played a huge role in Russell’s signing

When Russell was 16 years old he thought that if he delivered an impressive performance, he would get recognized by the top tier of motorsport.

But that was not the case and as soon as he realized that he dropped an email to the Mercedes team principal Wolff.

POV: You’re @GeorgeRussell63’s first beverage as a Grand Prix winner

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His timing of sending the email was too correct as the Brackley-based team had won the first title of their 8-years of dominance in the sport in the 2014 season. Wolff, himself was standing on the podium and Russell believes that it played a huge part in his signing.

George Russell had nothing to lose

The young Briton was keen to join a young drivers’ program of one of the F1 teams and he dropped a simple straight-forward mail to Wolff. Russell revealed that he was in Abu Dhabi for a practice session in F3 when he dropped the mail.

Russell thought that he had nothing to lose. If gets no replies, he hadn’t lost anything and if he did; well that was a win. The Mercedes driver also revealed that he got a reply from Wolff within 15 minutes.

While sending the mail he thought that it probably was a good time as well as Mercedes had just won the championship and it was the Tuesday after they had secured the title.

Speaking on the podcast, Russell said that at the time it was just luck but looking back at it he realizes that these small things make a difference.

“You need the person at the receiving end to be in a right/good state of mind,” Russell added.

So read: George Russell was about to end his F1 dream before getting email from Toto Wolff