{"id":84535,"date":"2025-08-22T08:02:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T08:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84535\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T08:02:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T08:02:10","slug":"2025-formula-1-mid-season-driver-rankings-2-george-russell-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/84535\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Formula 1 mid-season driver rankings #2: George Russell \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> has consistently wrung the best available results from his Mercedes, so much so that the team\u2019s dip in form after introducing an unsuccessful rear suspension upgrade can be traced accurately through his finishing positions.<\/p>\n

George Russell<\/p>\n

Best
\nWorst<\/p>\n

GP start
\n1
\n14<\/p>\n

GP finish
\n1
\n11<\/p>\n

Points
\n172<\/p>\n

Having too often let results slip through his fingers last year, Russell trod carefully in tricky conditions at the season-opener and grabbed a podium finish when Oscar Piastri<\/a> hit trouble. He returned to the rostrum at the next round after brilliantly splitting the McLaren drivers in qualifying, though he was unable to prevent Lando Norris getting ahead of him.<\/p>\n

He might have done better at Suzuka, where he made a mistake in qualifying, but in Bahrain he was stellar. Denied a front row start when an error by his team triggered a penalty, Russell impressively resisted Norris over the final laps despite grappling with multiple problems in his W16.<\/p>\n

The car\u2019s inherent weakness in hotter conditions told in Jeddah. He had his only real \u2018off\u2019 weekend of the season at the next round in Miami, where new team mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> out-qualified him twice, though he capitalised on a Virtual Safety Car period to grab another podium finish.<\/p>\n

But if seventh in the Imola heat felt like a disappointment it was nothing compared to Monaco. There Russell came to life in Q1 only for his car to expire in Q2, ensuring he would start and finish out of the points.<\/p>\n

He got payback in the next two races. When a Safety Car deployment handed the chance to attack Max Verstappen<\/a> he pounced on it, then survived his rival\u2019s bad-tempered retaliation to claim fourth. That made the fight for victory in the next round at Montreal all the more spicy, and Russell prevailed, claiming Mercedes\u2019 only win so far this year.<\/p>\n

However the team introduced a rear suspension upgrade around this time which neither driver clicked with. Seldom outside the top four over the prior races, Russell finished outside it at the next three rounds.<\/p>\n

Fifth looked like the maximum available at the Red Bull Ring and Spa-Francorchamps. But Russell could have finished higher than 10th at his home race where he twice gambled on an early switch to slick tyres and lost out both times, mystified at his team\u2019s insistence on fitting the hardest available rubber. <\/p>\n

For the last race before the summer break Mercedes reverted to its previous suspension configuration and Russell was immediately back on it. From fourth on the grid he claimed the final spot on the rostrum from Charles Leclerc<\/a> behind the all-conquering McLarens.<\/p>\n

That result left him just 15 points off Verstappen\u2019s third place in the drivers\u2019 championship. Had it not been for Mercedes\u2019 flawed upgrade, Russell could quite realistically have taken the position, though doing so would have ironically left him vulnerable to Verstappen activating his widely-reported Red Bull contract clause and coming after his seat.<\/p>\n

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Driver Rankings
\nBrowse all Driver Rankings<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has consistently wrung the best available results from his Mercedes, so much so that the team\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,9307,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-84535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84535","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=84535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}