Martin Brundle has stated he finds it \u201cstrange\u201d that George Russell has not been tied down to a fresh contract at the Mercedes team.<\/p>\n
Russell has been part of the Mercedes family since 2017, when he joined as a junior driver before progressing to the F1 grid with Williams two years later.<\/p>\n
The Briton received a call-up to race for the Brackley-based squad in 2022 and has established himself as a race winner, with three grand prix wins to his name.<\/p>\n
He has also stepped into a team leader role following the exit of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari.<\/p>\n
However, Russell has not yet been tied down to a new deal at Mercedes amid whisperings linking Max Verstappen with a shock switch to the team.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Sky F1, Brundle backed Russell to be issued a fresh contract by the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s driving beautifully and he hasn’t got a contract for next year that we know about at the moment,\u201d\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels strange, although when I speak to Mercedes about that, they remind me not only are they his current employers, they\u2019re his management team as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell has enjoyed his best career start this year, scoring four podiums in the opening six rounds to leave him fourth in the drivers’ standings.<\/p>\n
Brundle has backed Russell to mix it up with the front-running McLaren duo if Mercedes is able to find a small step with its car.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge is driving beautifully, and grabbing everything that’s available,\u201d\u00a0Brundle added.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they can find a tenth or two and close the gap to McLaren, he’ll be right there.\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Brundle has stated he finds it \u201cstrange\u201d that George Russell has not been tied down to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87429,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[859,4199,1076,1074,1077,1075,997,707,4200,998,1073,1072,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-87428","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-f1-calendar","11":"tag-f1-live","12":"tag-f1-results","13":"tag-f1-standings","14":"tag-ferrari","15":"tag-formula-1","16":"tag-formula1","17":"tag-lewis-hamilton","18":"tag-max-verstappen","19":"tag-motorsport","20":"tag-racing","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114478051925395004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}