Weekly Hot Take: George Russell is the Most Consistent Driver on the 2025 Grid

Everybody’s posh king and the meme ruler of F1, George Russell is more than just an entertaining driver off the track. The Mercedes driver has performed incredibly well so far this year, and it’s time he earns the respect he deserves. He may be overlooked, but “Mr. Consistency” is really a much more skilled and impressive driver than most give him credit for.

Joining karting when he was just 7 years old, Russell’s first wins were back-to-back victories at the Karting European Championship in 2011 and 2012 before he graduated the division to move on to the junior formulae programs. After winning a handful of trophies and championships, he joined the Mercedes Junior team in 2017 and then signed a seat with Williams alongside Robert Kubica in 2019 for his debut season, out-qualifying Kubica at all 21 Grands Prix. He had his first taste of a Mercedes F1 car when he filled in for Lewis Hamilton at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix but suffered through strategic error and a tire puncture after leading the majority of the race. The denied victory was heartbreaking, but that along with Russell’s first podium during the 2021 Belgian GP showed Mercedes that he had the skill and ability to replace Valtteri Bottas in 2022 for the 2nd Mercedes seat. In his first season at Mercedes, Russell scored his maiden pole position in Hungary and his first-ever win in São Paulo, finishing an astounding fourth place in the World Drivers' Championship. 2023 was a rough season for Mercedes in terms of wins, but Russell was victorious in 2024 at both the Austrian and Las Vegas Grands Prix.

Russell celebrating his first-ever Grand Prix win in São Paulo in 2023- slay king. Photo courtesy of CNN.

After Lewis Hamilton announced his signing with Ferrari at the beginning of the 2024 season, all eyes turned to Russell to become the team’s number 1 driver as speculation abounded about who Mercedes would sign for the second seat. In 2024, Russell scored a total of 245 points and claimed sixth place in the Driver’s Championship, one place above his departing teammate Hamilton. Following in the footsteps of Russell, Kimi Antonelli moved up from Formula 2 after two years and graduated from the team’s junior program. Antonelli was recruited in 2025 to drive alongside Russell, but many fans were worried that the team would be unstable at the beginning of the season due to Hamilton’s sudden departure after 12 strong seasons with the team. However, Antonelli has been an incredible driver from the first race, and Russell’s leadership has helped him feel welcome and strengthened at his new team.

Russell started the 2025 season off with a bang: 2 podiums in a row in Australia and China, 5th place in Japan, 2nd in Bahrain and 5th again in Saudi Arabia. So far, he has scored a total of 73 points, which temporarily places him in 4th in the World Driver’s Championship. With Antonelli’s 38 points added to Russell’s total, Mercedes currently sits in P2 in the Constructor’s, 77 points behind McLaren (who have won 4 out of the 5 races so far). Considering that they have not won a single race yet, Mercedes is putting on a stunning performance and, with Russell’s massive help, have a chance for great success this season.

As fans await more Russell domination on track, we also hope for the constant flow of George Russell memes to continue. Sometimes the memes are fan-made (these, for example) but sometimes Russell meme-ifies himself (as seen here). Russell is also a major diva and likes to cause drama on track and accuse other drivers of wrongdoing, most notably Bottas and Verstappen. He’s definitely a funny guy, even when he’s not trying, and that’s just another reason he should have more fans.

With a mega start to the season, Russell has already proven his abilities to perform every single week at an amazingly high level. As he continues to achieve points this season for Mercedes, I know I will be cheering him on and wishing him the best of luck. As always, thank you for reading, especially my more consistent readers- see what I did there?

Lights out and away we go,

Lucy xx