{"id":36904,"date":"2025-07-31T23:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T23:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/36904\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T23:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T23:50:11","slug":"mercedes-and-toto-wolff-hold-cards-on-my-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/36904\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercedes and Toto Wolff hold cards on my future"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell expects to drive for Mercedes next season but admitted his employer holds the power in their continuing contract negotiations.<\/p>\n

Russell is also managed by Mercedes, with Gwen Lagrue, the driver development adviser, essentially representing the British driver\u2019s interests as well as the team\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The arrangement was formed when Russell was 16 years old and looking to secure his future in the sport. It is not uncommon \u2014 Kimi Antonelli, Russell\u2019s team-mate, and Esteban Ocon, the Haas driver, are under the same management. Russell is also managed by Harry Soden, primarily for commercial matters.<\/p>\n

\"Toto<\/p>\n

Russell says \u201che stills trusts\u201d Wolff and his team to support him as long as he performs<\/p>\n

MARK SUTTON\/FORMULA 1 VIA GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until last year the team have supported me so much and given me such amazing opportunities. Our goals have been aligned and what has been the best interest for them has been the best for me,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese past six months have been very unique in that I don\u2019t have huge power in that sort of agreement. And maybe the interests were not aligned for some time [where Mercedes were negotiating with Max Verstappen], and that puts me at risk, but it was my job to perform and reduce that risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t wish for it to come to anything like [splitting with Mercedes]. I still trust Toto [Wolff, the team principal] and the team, and that they will always support me as long as I am performing. But for Kimi and I these past months have not been the most assuring for our futures and that has been a bit conflicting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The threat of Verstappen joining Mercedes has ended for next season \u2014 but only temporarily. After Sunday\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix, in which he finished fourth, the Dutchman is third in the drivers\u2019 championship on 185 points, with Russell 28 behind in fourth after finishing fifth at Spa-Francorchamps.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s long-term plans have been of interest to Mercedes, with his contract next season even more weighted to a departure from Red Bull<\/p>\n

JAY HIRANO\/THE MEGA AGENCY<\/p>\n

Verstappen has an exit clause that would allow him to leave at the end of the 2025 season should he sit outside the top three at the summer break, which starts after the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend. However, there is no chance of that being triggered now, even if Russell won in Budapest and Verstappen crashed out.<\/p>\n

In addition to Verstappen\u2019s desire to stay at Red Bull next year, sources at Mercedes have consistently said that they would not buy him out of the contract if the clause was not met. It is understood discussions between Wolff and Verstappen\u2019s camp were always more focused on his longer-term plans. \u201cIt\u2019s basically time to stop all the rumours, and for me it has always been quite clear that I was staying anyway,\u201d Verstappen, 27, said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The Times has been told that the four-times world champion\u2019s contract next season is even more weighted towards a departure, with an exit clause available if he is not in the top two of the drivers\u2019 championship. That seems likely given that Red Bull are producing their own power unit for the first time, against much more experienced rivals. Mercedes, who are one of those, are believed to have a leading engine.<\/p>\n

As such, it is likely that in 12 months\u2019 time all the members of this saga could be in exactly the same position, a reality of which Russell is more than aware. The problem is there is very little he can do about it.<\/p>\n

\"F1<\/p>\n

It would be harder for Russell to follow in Hamilton\u2019s footsteps in engineering a Mercedes exit given the team\u2019s greater involvement in his career<\/p>\n

MARK THOMPSON\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Mercedes] hold the cards because of the situation we find ourselves in with the management agreement that is in place. So they have had no rush to sign Kimi or I because we have a long-term overriding deal in place,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old plans to spend the summer break relaxing and assessing his options. The minutiae of the contract is what will be crucial going forward, in terms of whether Russell can ensure there are guarantees of his place in the team for more than one year, regardless of Verstappen\u2019s future. <\/p>\n

When Hamilton moved to Ferrari from Mercedes for this season, he managed to trigger an escape clause in his contract having only been offered a \u201cone plus one year\u201d deal. However, that would be much harder for Russell to do given Mercedes\u2019 greater scale of involvement in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell expects to drive for Mercedes next season but admitted his employer holds the power in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-36904","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36904","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=36904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}