'I grew up working-class – I didn't have fancy cars or private jets. Then you get to F1 and see the people that had an easier path': GEORGE RUSSELL on not caring what anyone thinks of him, his Kimi Antonelli rivalry and Lewis Hamilton

A yacht in Cannes. And an appointment with Reid Wiseman, commander of NASA’s Artemis II space mission that orbited the moon in April.

The sun shines on the stern, and the beautiful folk sashay along the harbour. Nibbles are served to the clink-clink of ice cubes in white wine. It is a rarified scene during Cannes Lions, one of the resort’s renowned series of festivals, catering for marketing, advertising and creative communication types.

Sound swanky? It is, but the self-styled ‘working-class’ George Russell is too ‘self-focused’ to see even this privileged brush with lunar royalty as much more than a necessary sideline en route, he hopes, to his first world title.

Dozens of handshakes for the corporate guests at the Wiseman talk completed, Russell steps into the saloon to talk about his single-minded approach. Of how resilience was hammered into him by not being born with a silver spoon. Of how his young self could hardly believe he will take part in this weekend’s British Grand Prix. And about why Lewis Hamilton is suddenly in the championship fight.

Russell will arrive at Silverstone on Thursday with a bounce in his step. For he won last weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg, ending a seven-race drought. 

Momentum was slipping towards his 19-year-old team-mate Kimi Antonelli, a raw Italian with pace to burn. After that fillip in Styrian mountains, Russell is now ‘only’ 40 points off Antonelli with 14 rounds remaining.

He is adamant that his former team-mate and fellow Brit Lewis Hamilton is right in the mix for this year’s title

As for the blinkered mindset that is sustaining him, Russell admitted: ‘If I am liked, fine. If I am not liked, I am not going to lose sleep over it.

‘I am not saying I am carefree now, but in my younger days I was more conscious of pleasing the fans or doing things that weren’t authentically me, never saying “no” to anything. Maybe I cared more about the way I was perceived. Now I just want to be myself. I only care what those I love think of me.’

And why not? Chasing world titles is a brutally hard game, one of tiny margins. Russell’s predecessor at Mercedes, Nico Rosberg, for example, gave up cycling in the summer break, so as not to put on a pound or two of muscle around his knees and retain a fraction more speed.

Like Rosberg back in 2016, Russell counts a mind coach among his retinue. ‘I asked my psychologist if I was being selfish by concentrating more on what I want, putting myself first. He said, no, it was being self-focused.

‘But I am slightly more ruthless now. I turned down an invitation to a friend’s wedding because it didn’t work for me. I don’t need or read positives.

‘But I did hear on the grapevine that there is chatter about favouritism (namely that Mercedes are pulling for Antonelli). It doesn’t bother me – and nor is it true. When I was younger, I might have wanted to tackle that accusation. But there are 2,000 people in the team and they are all on a bonus if we win the constructors’ championship, so why would there be favouritism?

‘We are both allowed to race, unless the team’s overriding aim to win the maximum points available is under threat.’

Resilience is a characteristic Russell has needed to exhibit in spades this year. After winning in Melbourne on the opening day of the season, March 8, his next triumph in Austria came 112 days later.

Resilience is a characteristic Russell has needed to exhibit in spades this year

In another upturn, he has been assured in the last couple of weeks by team principal Toto Wolff – a ‘friend, guide and mentor’ – that he will 100 per cent drive for Mercedes next season in an unchanged lineup. Ergo, Max Verstappen, for so long linked to his seat, is out of the reckoning.

But in the dark passages of the last few months, where did Russell mine the reserves of self-belief as Antonelli, whom he beat comfortably last year, found his stride?

‘It comes from being brought up in a working-class family,’ he argued. ‘My family, my father particularly, had to work to provide. That sounds obvious, you think it is the case for everyone. I didn’t grow up seeing people in fancy cars or flying everywhere in private jets. When you get into Formula One you see the wealth and some people, through no fault or fortune of their own, have a slightly easier path.’

Russell’s father Steve was a seed and wheat merchant in Norfolk. ‘Success was making a profit,’ said Russell, who has since repaid the £1.5million his parents spent on his career by selling the family business. Russell turns to his closest confidant, Carmen Montero Mundt, his Spanish girlfriend of six years.

‘Carmen’s family were successful in the construction business and then lost everything in 2008 (the global financial crash),’ he says. ‘She and her four brothers had to move schools and universities as a result. Giving up is not an option. We both know that. You have to work to survive.’

Which is what Hamilton, 41, has managed to do at Ferrari, taking his first for the Scuderia in Barcelona last month after four years of relative disappointments.

‘I think he will be a serious title threat,’ said Russell of his garlanded former team-mate, who is five points behind him. ‘He’s still got it. He gives me the inspiration of resilience. Everyone counted him out after his last season with me at Mercedes and with Charles (Leclerc at Ferrari) last year.

‘He is on it again, and it’s not because he has just woken up and remembered how to drive. It is that it has clicked for him. He is happy driving the car, he has faith in his team. He is working well on the setup, getting the tyres in the right window.

Silverstone has not produced happy results for Russell, and in 2022 his shocking collision with Zhou Guanyu saw the Chinese driver’s car turn over and somersault into a wall on the first lap

Celebrating pole position at Silverstone in 2024 – but it ended badly as a mid-race water leak forced him to retire his car

‘I had that “click” last year and the start of this, and I hope I am getting it again. I am working on the car, how I want it, and we saw the results in Barcelona (where he took pole and finished second) and Austria.’

As for Silverstone, Russell is upbeat despite unhappy results there – his record across Williams and Mercedes at his home circuit reads 14th, 12th, 18th, 12th, retired, fifth, retired, 10th. With 175,000 fans expected on Sunday, what blur of memories carries him there to Northamptonshire?

‘I love the place,’ he says. ‘The fans are the purest of the year. Qualifying on pole two years ago was a highlight of my career for the atmosphere at my home race in front of a home crowd.

‘I always remember 2009, the start and standing at Copse. The two Red Bulls were leading – and that buzz! I can picture it now. I need to be asked about this to remind myself of where I have got to, and to wonder what that 10-year-old kid would think of me 17 years on being in that race.’ And perhaps even winning it.