George Russell already stronger than Hamilton? It's a dangerous assumption — MPH

His role at the junior Red Bull team also means he is something of a radical advocate for young drivers, of spotting the diamonds and polishing them to bring out their full potential. So for sure his sympathy will be with the young challenger rather than the driver who is already a multiple champion and heading into his 17th season of F1.

But still, it’s quite a brave leap stating that Russell is already stronger. On paper, it looks like that. This season Russell was 35 points ahead, he scored a victory and a pole – and Hamilton did not. But as is often the case in F1 things are not as simple as the surface statistics make them look. The points picture is firstly skewed by two races where Russell was all set to finish behind Hamilton – Australia and Miami – when the timing of a safety car came to Russell’s rescue and severely compromised Hamilton. That’s a points swing of 14. Then there was Hamilton being run into by Kevin Magnussen and having to pit on the first lap in Spain on a weekend where his race pace was greater than Russell’s thanks to their respective set-up choices. Merc’s post-hoc simulation of the straightforward running of that race, based on the respective pace of each driver has Hamilton taking second and Russell fourth. As it was, Russell was third, Hamilton fifth. There’s an 11-point swing. Add in his hydraulics failure in Abu Dhabi while ahead (a points swing of 12) and those four random pieces of luck explain the 35 points difference, without even looking at Hamilton’s DRS failure in Q3 Hungary (which eased Russell’s passage to pole there, Hamilton having been the quicker Mercedes up until that point).

There were races where Russell was quicker – Saudi, Monaco, Baku – but over the season there were more where Hamilton had the edge. It was invariably by small margins, but in the 10-race sequence between Britain and Austin, Hamilton out-qualified Russell nine times. The one he didn’t was Hungary – where, as recounted, his DRS failed. Looking at all the dry qualifying events where fair comparison can be made (ie taking out car failures etc), the score is 11-5 to Hamilton, albeit by a tiny average advantage of 0.012sec. That’s the best a team-mate has done against him in qualifying since Fernando Alonso in Hamilton’s rookie season of 2007.

Into the second half of the season, once the team had worked out the tiny operating window which the combination of the W13’s aerodynamic and rear suspension imposed on it, it had a car which was quicker over a lap than it had been but which was unpredictable into slow corners. There was very little clue about exactly when it might be about to viciously snap, that trait which Hamilton described as like ‘trying to sneak up behind a horse without it kicking you’. Hamilton was able to deal with this trait better than Russell but George got there eventually. He mentally regrouped after his disastrous Austin race and came back mightily strong in Mexico and Brazil and his victory in the latter event, holding off Hamilton sitting right on his gearbox for the last 11 laps, knowing that one slip and Lewis would be through, was mighty.

There’s no question Russell is a truly world class F1 driver ready to fight for a world championship. That much has been obvious for two years or more. But to make the assumption that he already has Hamilton covered is a dangerous one. Let’s assume that Mercedes give them a car capable of running at the front in 2023. Their rivalry is going to be intense.