Formula 1 Today

Formula 1 Mercedes driver George Russell spoke with USA TODAY about being teammates with Lewis Hamilton, his brother's influence, ahead of Miami GP.

But when the doors are closed and the cameras are off, he’s just a normal bloke and it sort of brings it all back to reality.” GR: “That’s a question I’ve been asked a few times.That circuit probably contributed to 50% of my darkest days in Formula 1, so obviously to get a relatively good result was nice to get the monkey on my back almost, but I don’t really believe in those sort of coincidences. Whereas you go 30 miles across to Brackley, with a team of 2,000 people, the resource was almost infinite and the innovation is like nothing you’ve seen before and just striving to get better, striving to innovate, striving to win. GR: “The first one I came across was ‘Friends.’ It was always on the television on Comedy Central, I think, in the UK. It must have been on 24/7. They should have rebranded the channel to ‘Friends TV.’ I went through every single episode, probably – I was pretty young, 14 to 16, 17. I was going in there full gas, max attack, and you can’t dwell on the past if you want to move forward. Because you could describe the same problem to 10 different people, and if you don’t describe it the right way, there could be 10 different takes from your limitation. GR: “I’d say my technical knowledge is good enough but the most important thing in Formula 1 is that you have experts in their field and you need to trust those experts to do what they do best. From my side, it’s very important to sort of learn a little bit as you go along the way. As a driver, you need to give them feedback and point them in the right direction and pinpoint accurately what the issue is when describing it. The physical side of it is one side of it. And then it goes through your body, your arm, the steering – the force of the car is trying to move you one way, so (using) core strength. And it was the three of us."