George Russell fears Lewis Hamilton will ‘unleash anger’ after Mercedes woes

George Russell is expecting Lewis Hamilton to show his ‘anger’ in his on-track performances after struggling to make the most of his pace at Mercedes over the course of this year to date. The 37-year-old has been outperformed by his Mercedes team-mate for the vast majority of the new campaign and will be desperate to fight back by producing a strong showing at this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.

Russell is the only driver on the grid to have secured top-five finishes at every Grand Prix since the beginning of the season and has certainly shown his mettle as a top-class operator in his first year as a Mercedes driver. He is not yet prepared to write off Hamilton, though, after the latter’s impressive fifth-placed finish in Spain at the last time of asking and firmly believes that he will come back with a vengeance over the coming weeks and months.

“The pace has been very similar between the two of us,” Russell told Sky Sports F1 when quizzed on Hamilton’s recent showings ahead of FP1 in Monaco.

“He was extraordinarily fast on Sunday, to be honest I was struggling with the cooling and probably had the tyres in the wrong window but he was absolutely flying.

“I have no doubt that we’re going to see this true pace and anger, that he can unlock at any point, become unleashed and he’ll have me on my toes. I think Sunday was the first example of that we’ve seen all year.”

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