{"id":181973,"date":"2025-10-01T07:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T07:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181973\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T07:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T07:12:07","slug":"annoyed-george-russell-doesnt-want-to-commit-to-mercedes-after-verstappen-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/181973\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Annoyed’ George Russell ‘doesn\u2019t want to commit’ to Mercedes after Verstappen talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Made to wait for a new Mercedes contract as Toto Wolff engaged in talks with Max Verstappen, Jacques Villeneuve believes George Russell is now making Wolff wait as he knows there is \u201cno one\u201d else that Mercedes can turn to.<\/p>\n

Russell has spent a large part of the last two years quizzed on rumours that Verstappen could head to Mercedes. But while in 2024 the question was if Verstappen would be his teammate, this year it became whether the Dutchman might steal his seat.<\/p>\n

\u2018The thing is, who else would Mercedes sign?\u2019<\/p>\n

That was finally laid to rest at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before Formula 1 broke for its annual summer holiday. And it was Verstappen who put an end to it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to put an end to all the speculation and rumours,\u201d Verstappen told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets. \u201cFor me, it was clear all year that I was going to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was followed by Wolff declaring Mercedes would continue with Russell<\/a> and his teammate Kimi Antonelli into the 2026 season with its all-new cars and engines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always said there\u2019s not going to be any big news, because we\u2019re doing this,\u201d said the Austrian in Zandvoort. \u201cWe\u2019re continuing with both of them, of course.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith George,\u201d he continued, \u201c[he] has a few things where we want to optimise some of the travelling and the marketing days, how many hours we\u2019re putting [in]. He\u2019s an experienced driver, and for us, it\u2019s always important to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a month later, neither Wolff nor Russell have officially announced a new deal for the four-time grand prix winner.<\/p>\n

F1 contracts: Made to be broken?<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Revealed: The six drivers out of contract at the end of the F1 2025 season<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 F1 2026 driver line-up: Lewis Hamilton and other drivers already confirmed for 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s because, Villeneuve says, the cards are all now in Russell\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge Russell is very good,\u201d Villeneuve told a betting website. \u201cOut of all the other drivers, he\u2019s the one that\u2019s always showing consistency in getting the result.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s matured a lot. He doesn\u2019t seem to be making the mistakes he used to make.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season he\u2019s really maximising the points he can get with that team and that car.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounds like Mercedes are committed to George Russell and now it\u2019s him that doesn\u2019t want to commit anymore. Because he was annoyed that he had to wait.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing is, who else would Mercedes sign? There\u2019s no one available.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, there\u2019s no team available for Russell either. So, it\u2019s a pointless battle right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the key because everyone knows that Max has one year to go at Red Bull. So, anyone that\u2019s not under contract for 2027 is at risk. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell is fourth in the Drivers\u2019 Championship, in a battle with Verstappen to join the McLaren teammates on the F1 2025 podium. He has 212 points to Verstappen\u2019s 255 with seven race weekends remaining.<\/p>\n

Russell\u2019s latest update on his Formula 1 future had him insisting it was not a worry, just a matter of time as \u2013 like Villeneuve attested to \u2013 neither he nor Mercedes is in a rush.<\/p>\n

\u201cNaturally, we wanted to take the summer off to sort of relax and reset, but [we are] positively moving in the right direction,\u201d Russell said in response to a question from PlanetF1.com over his future.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think as there is no time pressure from the team\u2019s side and no time pressure from our side, we\u2019re just ensuring it\u2019s done properly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, you are juggling priorities. It\u2019s not like the world stops to sort a contract. We\u2019ve got to worry about race weekends, we\u2019re focusing on future development, already looking ahead to next year, sponsorship days, things sometimes do take longer than you would anticipate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut as I said, they\u2019re positively going in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Verstappen\u2019s Nurburgring rival scoffs at \u2018laughable\u2019 lap time debate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Made to wait for a new Mercedes contract as Toto Wolff engaged in talks with Max Verstappen, Jacques…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,3875,818,945,44,17165,85],"class_list":["post-181973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-home-page","tag-mercedes","tag-news","tag-popular","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}