George Russell has taken Lewis Hamilton’s position as Mercedes’ number one driver, according to F1 fans in a new poll. Thousands of supporters have said the seven-time champion’s role at the team has diminished after his disappointing 2022.
Hamilton finished 25 points behind Russell at the end of the season as he couldn’t chase down the former Williams star’s early season advantage. It means Hamilton finished behind a team-mate at the end of a year for just the third time in his F1 career.
And over half of respondents in an Express Sport poll (57.6 per cent) feel Hamilton has now been overtaken by Russell at Mercedes. Meanwhile, just 42.4 per cent still feel he is the main star as the Silver Arrows try to close the gap to Red Bull in 2023.
Russell admitted he would have been “incredibly proud and happy” to beat Hamilton in the standings ahead of the season. However, he hinted the result had lost some of its awe due to his P4 finish in the Drivers’ Championship.
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In comparison, Hamilton struggled early on but found form in the middle of the season to secure five back-to-back podiums between Canada and Hungary. The seven-time champion also edged out Russell’s podium haul, picking up nine compared to the youngster’s eight.
But, Russell is confident he may have beaten Hamilton by even more points under different circumstances. Russell told The Race: “Equally I look at those races and I think if little things went slightly differently, I could have been ahead. He out-qualified me in Montreal but if I stayed on wets, I probably would have been ahead and then would have finished on the podium.
“It was Austria where I had a small collision with Checo [Sergio Perez], I probably would have been on the podium instead of Lewis there. Silverstone, who knows what could have happened, it was very tight there.
“It was just quite interesting how everything sort of seemed to flow in my direction at the start of the year, then it was probably that mid-phase where sort of things probably flowed more in his direction. Things sort of balanced out a little bit .”
