(Motorsport) George Russell has insisted that he is “ready to win a world championship” after impressing in his debut season at Mercedes, claiming the team’s only win of the season. The 24 year old became Hamilton’s first team-mate in six years to outperform the seven time World Champion and is now setting his sights on the prestigious title in the 2023 season. The W13 suffered a number of issues in the 2022 season and the Silver Arrows trailed behind Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull Racing for the entirety of the season, finishing third in the Constructors Standings.

“I feel absolutely ready to win a world championship. I’ve felt ready for a couple of years now. I think having this season next to Lewis has been huge for me personally to learn some of the little details, how to get more out of my car, more out of my team, and extracting everything out of the package when it truly matters.

“And I’m definitely going to have a really strong winter. I’m going to work really hard with my team. Every single person at Mercedes’ factory is going to be pushing like hell to deliver a car, to give us a chance to go fight next season. I guess if you told me that at the start of the year, I would have been extraordinarily happy because if you beat Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes, most of the time that means you would be a world champion.

“Obviously, I would take the positives away from the season, but I’m not going to celebrate finishing P4 in the championship. I’m going to celebrate winning the race in Brazil because that was a huge achievement for myself and the whole team. But the fact is, we’re all here to win and we’re here to win world championships. So we’ve not done a perfect job this season. We’ve had a relatively clean and smooth season with the car and package we’ve had. But to the standards this team set, some standards I set myself… it’s not good enough and we need to go on next year and give it more.”

Mercedes driver George Russell

If Russell wins the World Championship in 2023, he will become the second youngest British driver (after Lewis Hamilton) and the 11th driver from the country to win the title. When asked about his potential, four time World Champion Sebastian Vettel said “It’s so difficult to say. But if he gets the right car, the right equipment, the right team – and I think he’s in a good place – then yeah I think he’s got the talent and skill. There’s more than talent and skill needed but he seems to be hard-working, so yeah he’s got a good chance.”

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