In his three years at Williams, Britain’s George Russell has yet to be outqualified by a team-mate, consistently outperforming both Robert Kubica and now Nicholas Latifi in pretty much every session of every Grand Prix.
Many people point to the quality of Russell’s two team-mates – Robert Kubica who returned to the sport in the twilight of his racing career having recovered from a horrific injury that many people thought would surely spell his retirement, and Nicholas Latifi who somewhat underwhelmed in the junior formulae, and who many people (rather unkindly!) claim is only in Formula 1 thanks to his family’s billions – in explaining his relative speed.
However, new Williams CEO Jost Capito believes that Russell’s talent is the real reason his team-mates have struggled and it’s him that’s making their job difficult as opposed to Kubica & Latifi’s limitations making Russell look good.
Capito said on the Formula 1 ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast: “To be the teammate of George is very difficult”.
“It’s the same as being the teammate of Lewis, that is always difficult.”
“He has the ability to get the team behind him. Everybody is really pushing and motivated to give him what he is demanding, and that is an ability that really a top driver needs.”
Capito also praised the job Russell’s team-mate Latifi is currently doing at Williams Racing:
“It was his rookie year last year, so he has to learn, and he learned from that. He has to prove this year what he learned last year. He had a couple of 11th positions last year, so he was close to a point last year. He is working very hard.”
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