George Russell: "Claire Williams knew how to negotiate"

George Russell has revealed on the Beyond The Grid podcast that "there was no way out" of Williams, as Claire Williams "did a good job in contract negtiations".

George Russell helped Williams develop their car and despite the -often- poor efforts and performance by the team, he overdelivered and extracted the car's full potential, day in day out.

He scored a bunch of Q3 appearances for the team in 2021, their first points since the 2019 season, and their first podium since Lance Stroll at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Russell appeared on the Beyond The Grid podcast, commenting on his relationship with the team, saying: "In hindsight, three years driving on my own at the back was too long. Unfortunately, Claire did quite a good job in contract negotiations, so there was no way out."

To think that Mercedes kept Russell on hold before deciding what to do with Valtteri Bottas, who occupied the second Mercedes seat for five seasons, alongside Lewis Hamilton, it's a bit unlike that Russell’s three-year stay at Williams was because of Claire Williams's negotiating abilities. It was probably Mercedes' delaying of things that made Russell stay with Williams for such a long time.

A while ago, Kevin Magnussen also revealed on his book, All Or Nothing, that Williams offered him a seat for 2021, but it was to replace George Russell, instead of Nicholas Latifi, as expected. He said: "What kind of team is that? Dropping Russell and Keeping Latifi is pure idiocy".

But it’s doubtful that Williams was unappreciative or ungrateful against Russell, when he was such a help to the team. So what if Williams’ move to offer a seat to KMag, was an -unsuccessfull- effort to put “pressure” on Mercedes? Not a very efficient way to do that, if you ask me, when, as we know, Mercedes kept their LH-VB lineup for 2021.