ZANDVOORT, Netherlands \u2014 Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says contract talks to keep George Russell for next year are \u201ca formality,\u201d even as the wait to confirm him for 2026 has prompted speculation about his Formula 1 future.<\/p>\n
Mercedes has yet to announce its lineup for 2026, long after other teams, but it has been widely expected to stay with Russell and his rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli.<\/p>\n
Russell himself previously linked the delay to Mercedes pursuing a move to sign Max Verstappen, who has since confirmed he’s staying with Red Bull.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe clearly know what we expect from each other, what we want. It\u2019s a formality,\u201d Wolff said at the Dutch Grand Prix on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut at the same time, it\u2019s important to discuss even the slightest details” like “how can we extract the most performance out of George?” or how to structure his marketing obligations, Wolff added.<\/p>\n
He and Russell said this week that they halted talks during F1’s midseason break and have resumed them since.<\/p>\n
\u201cToto and the team were very willing to work through the summer break to come to a resolution but I wanted just to take that time because those two weeks are pretty precious for all of us,” Russell said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no major rush and I don\u2019t want to really put a timeline on it. When it will happen, it will happen. If that\u2019s next week, a month, two months, three months, it will be what it will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolff also had a message of support for Antonelli after a rocky run of form for the Italian 18-year-old, who has scored points twice in the last eight races. He also ended up in the gravel trap in Friday’s first practice session at Zandvoort.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just continue to believe in him. He needs time,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cWe are fully on the mission, and single race weekends or a session like we had before (on Friday) is not going to change our opinion. Short term, we\u2019re going to say, \u201cThat\u2019s not good,\u201d but Kimi is a long-term investment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZANDVOORT, Netherlands \u2014 Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says contract talks to keep George Russell for next year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-103068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}