“It’s true: we gave George Russell a seat” – Aston Martin F1 Team

George Russell on the pit wall of the Aston Martin F1 team

Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team

• George Russell was photographed on the Aston Martin F1 team pit wall.

• Russell drives for the Williams team and is linked to a future move to Mercedes.

• Rumor has it that he will replace Valtteri Bottas on the team in 2022.

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Without context, it is easy to suspect the wrong and draw a conclusion that is far from the truth. Whether it’s just reading a heading and not the accompanying text, or seeing how X does something with Y, we humans can sometimes quickly come to wrong conclusions.

Something similar happened at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix last Sunday when the Aston Martin Formula One team tweeted: “Rumors that we gave George Russell a seat are correct.”

Without any context, we can easily assume that the Williams driver is under contract with the Aston Martin team. I mean, it wouldn’t be such a far-fetched idea given the close ties between Aston and the Mercedes-AMG team (Russell is also under contract with Mercedes). In addition, Toto Wolff, team principal of Merc, and Lawrence Stroll, team owner of Aston Martin, are friends and close business partners. After all, Wolff convinced Sebastian Vettel to switch from Ferrari to the Green team, so signing Russell wouldn’t be so strange.

But no, the text was backed up by a picture of Russell sitting on the Aston Martin pit wall after the race was abandoned after Max Verstappen’s massive fall. But is Russell under contract with Aston Martin? No, he’s under contract with Williams and Mercedes.

Russell’s (unknown) future

Russell has been driving in F1 since the start of the 2019 season. While the team did their best to bring Williams forward, it languished in the back of the field. Still, Russell is above the car’s potential, which only underscores his commitment. However, Russell is also associated with the Mercedes-AMG team and is strongly touted to join the team. The move to Mercedes just has no date …

With Valtteri Bottas performing below an acceptable level, rumors circulate that the Finnish driver has been told that his contract will not be renewed for 2022. These very same rumors also suggest that Russell has been given the green light to start alongside the defense for the team Master Lewis Hamilton. Both Bottas and Hamilton no longer have a contract at the end of 2021, but Wolff has put on record that he wants to sign Hamilton to a new contract as soon as possible.

Not a word about Bottas, however.

Russell has been hyped for having the driver sign Mercedes-AMG, and it is believed that he will finally get his big break in 2022. If that’s true, it will have been one of the best decisions Wolff & Co. made in recent years.