George Russell is a British Formula 1 driver, born in King's Lynn, Norfolk on 15 February 1998.
A member of the Mercedes junior programme, Russell joined Formula 1 as the reigning Formula 2 Champion in 2019 to drive for Williams.
Although he ended the season as the only driver with no points, he did impress with his pace, beating then team-mate Robert Kubica 21-0 in qualifying.
He continued to do so in 2020, reaching Q2 nine times and not being beaten once by new team-mate Nicholas Latifi. Sundays were less successful as he again failed t0 score points in his Williams, but he did end his wait for a top-10 finish when standing in for Lewis Hamilton at the Sakhir Grand Prix and hugely impressed throughout the race weekend.
Such a performance increased calls for him to be given a Mercedes seat, but he ultimately stayed put for the 2021 campaign.
Albeit perhaps a year too long at Williams in his eyes, 2021 was Russell's true breakout season as he combined his Saturday heroics with better Sunday showings, scoring 16 points for the season, including a first podium achieved at the Belgian Grand Prix.
It was enough to finally earn that call-up to a Mercedes seat for 2022, where he delivered a solid debut campaign.
While the Mercedes W13 proved not to be a title-contending car, Russell did score the team's only win of the season in Brazil and outscored seven-time World Champion team-mate Hamilton by 35 points across the season.
2024 proved to be a tougher assignment, Russell branding it arguably the messiest of his career so far, as Hamilton wrestled back control in the intra-team fight.
Despite his young age, Russell has never been shy to make big career decisions.
At the end of 2014, he sent Toto Wolff a message while in Abu Dhabi for a GP3 test. The two set up a meeting, and Russell told him he would race in Formula 3 in 2015 and had done tests with Carlin and Mucke, the latter of which used Mercedes engines - naturally, Wolff suggested he went with Mucke.
Russell would choose Carlin, and emailed Wolff explaining his choice, to which the Austrian replied: "Great to meet you but I think you're making the wrong decision."
It's safe to say it worked out in the end.
George Russell enjoyed a very similar junior path to that of Charles Leclerc's - both of them won the GP3 and F2 titles back-to-back and Russell is never afraid to remind everyone of that fact.
Upon beating Lando Norris to the F2 title in 2018, Russell was rewarded with a spot on the F1 grid with the struggling Williams outfit.
2018 had been a very poor season for the team, but in pre-season testing for 2019 it quickly became apparent that things were to get worse - that being because they failed to show up for the start of it.
Russell's only real competition for 2019 was with his team-mate Robert Kubica - a battle which over one lap he dominated after winning the qualifying head-to-head 21-0.
Kubica though was the one who scored Williams' only point of the 2019 campaign with P10 in the German GP thanks to penalties for both Alfa Romeo drivers, while Russell would come home P11, his best result of the season.
The Briton though was clearly the faster driver of the pair in 2019, and at the Hungarian Grand Prix he grossly outperformed in the Williams during qualifying, coming within a tenth of escaping Q1.
Russell would suffer his first retirement of the season in Singapore after he was shunted into the barriers by Romain Grosjean, while another DNF followed in Russia.
He would finish the season P20 and last in the Drivers' Championship as the only driver without a point in 2019.
But despite finishing behind team-mate Kubica in the standings, in the eighteen races finished by both drivers, Russell finished ahead of Kubica in sixteen of them.
After brief talks of a possible Mercedes drive for 2020, Russell was confirmed to be staying at Williams for 2020 with a new team-mate in the form of Canadian driver Latifi.
While that year's Williams was certainly more competitive than its predecessor, it remained the slowest car on the grid more often than not.
Despite this, Russell managed to drag his FW43 into Q2 in nine of the 16 qualifying sessions he drove it for and beat Latifi in every single one of them. Of the drivers in the bottom three teams, he was comfortably the most impressive on Saturdays, and developed a reputation as one of the best qualifiers on the grid.
The Brit continued to struggle on Sundays though, often dropping down the order at the start and spending his races stuck at the back of the grid fighting his fellow backmarkers.
A huge opportunity for him to score his first points in F1 presented itself at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix as he found himself running in P10 with just 12 laps to go. However, disaster struck when, under the Safety Car, he lost control trying to warm up his tyres and crashed into the wall, ending his race.
Just three rounds later though, he was given the chance to make amends when he was called up to replace Hamilton, who had tested positive for COVID-19, for the Sakhir Grand Prix, and it was a chance he took.
After pushing Bottas hard in qualifying, he had the upper hand on the Finn throughout the race and would have almost certainly won if not for a pit-stop error from Mercedes and a late puncture. He did at least recover to take P9 and his first points in the series, but having a victory taken away from him was heartbreaking nonetheless.
The performance did at least enhance his reputation and led to many calling for him to replace Bottas at Mercedes. With 2021 contracts already signed and sealed though, he stayed with Williams.
Russell though made himself the undeniable choice for Mercedes with his 2021 showings, delivering comfortably the strongest, most complete season of his F1 career to date at that stage.
Qualifying remained a strong point, as Russell made Q3 on four occasions in a Williams FW43B that while an improvement on the A-spec, was still commonly a bottom-three car alongside Alfa Romeo and Haas.
But crucially the race performances also came together, with Russell enjoying a run of four points finishes in five races as the FW43B reached its peak performance in the rounds either side of the summer break.
P8 in Hungary, P9 in Italy and P10 at the Russian GP were fantastic results for Russell, who in Russia qualified a sensational P3, that coming three rounds after his best qualifying performance in Williams colours after securing P2 on the grid in Belgium.
Belgium was somewhat bittersweet, as although Russell did take to the podium for the first time to celebrate P2, only half-points were awarded since heavy rain and fog forced the race to be abandoned after two laps behind the Safety Car.
Still, Russell did more than enough to convince Mercedes that it was time for the swap, as they confirmed Russell as the replacement to Bottas for 2022.
The Brit went on to repay that faith in 2022, though it was not the season that he or Mercedes had in mind as the W13 began the campaign far off the leading pace of Red Bull and Ferrari.
Still, while Hamilton went on a voyage through setups to find a key for Mercedes' recovery, Russell was consistently maximising the W13, featuring in the top five in each of the opening nine rounds, that run also yielding podium finishes in Australia, Spain and Baku. Through the opening seven races, he finished ahead of Hamilton in six of them.
After a disappointing exit on the first lap of his home race at Silverstone, Russell's collision inadvertently causing a nasty accident for Zhou Guanyu, he was able to bounce back with four podiums in the following six races, that streak bringing his first career pole at the Hungarian GP as Mercedes were now starting to make their W13 a more threatening opponent.
Russell was then forced to contend with a rough patch of form, the Singapore GP yielding collisions with Valtteri Bottas and Mick Schumacher. Japan, Mexico and the United States also passed without a podium or strong performance, but Russell would respond in style at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
Claiming the sprint victory from P3 on the grid, Russell followed that up with a solid drive to win the Sao Paulo GP, his first career victory, with Hamilton making it a one-two.
He may say that he puts very little value in the final standings where he sat ahead of Hamilton, but deep down, that had to feel good.
That being said, Russell would have been thankful for that way of thinking a year later, with the 2024 campaign not going anywhere near as smoothly.
It took until the Spanish Grand Prix, round seven of the season, for Russell to score his first podium finish. The Mercedes W14, like its predecessor, once more lacked the pace to fight for wins, but with the Spanish GP marking Hamilton's second runner-up result of 2024, Russell had work to do.
Russell would make the podium only once more though, that coming at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with a golden opportunity for victory in Singapore slipping through his fingers as he found the wall in the closing stages while harrying Sainz.
With a final points tally of 175, compared to 234 for Hamilton, Russell did not attempt to sugar-coat a difficult second Mercedes season, admitting it was "probably one of my worst seasons of my career in terms of results".
George Russell began karting in 2006, becoming MSA British champion and British Open champion. In 2010 he moved to the Rotax Mini Max category where he became Super One British champion, Formula Kart Stars British champion and also won the Kartmasters British Grand Prix.
He would move up to the KF3 class in 2011, winning the SKUSA Supernationals title and becoming CIK-FIA European Champion, a title he defended successfully in 2012. In his final year of karting in 2013, Russell finished P19 in the KF1 CIK-FIA World Championship.
Russell made his single-seater debut in 2014 in the Formula Renault 2.0 Alps Championship, ending the season P4. He also contested two rounds of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship, winning the final round of the season from pole as a guest entrant.
He would win the BRDC Formula 4 Champuionship in 2014 and in December of that year became the youngest-ever winner of the prestigious McLaren Autosport BRDC Award to earn himself a £100,000 cash prize, British Racing Drivers' Club membership and a Formula One test with McLaren.
In February 2015, Russell was announced as one of the twelve drivers selected to join the British Racing Drivers' Club SuperStars programme, the youngest-ever recruit to the scheme.
After two seasons in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship Russell stepped up to GP3, winning the title in his first season, before doing the same again one year later in his debut F2 season.
As one of the grid's youngest and least experienced drivers, Russell unsurprisingly earned less than the vast majority of his colleagues in the Williams days.
Even so, the Brit reportedly brought in a tidy $1.2million a year, according to the 2020 edition of Business Book GP, though his salary that year would have been lower after he accepted a 20% wage cut, in a bid to help Williams through the financial strains of the global pandemic.
Still, he saw a hefty pay rise as a full-time Mercedes driver, with Forbes pinpointing his Mercedes 2023 salary at $8 million.
That will have been topped up by his sponsorship deals with Mercedes, Bell Helmets and Puma, according to his website. Russell has an estimated net worth of $16m.
George Russell was born to Alison Russell and Steve Russell - he also has a brother called Benjy.
Russell was in a long-term relationship with Seychelle de Vries, sister of 2019 Formula 2 Champion Nyck de Vries.
It was unclear for some time though whether or not they were still together to this day - Russell hadn't shared any pictures with her on his social media pages, but Seychelle was snapped with Russell after he won the 2017 GP3 Series title, the caption reading: "My champion".
The pair also celebrated Christmas together in 2018 according to her Instagram account.
However, post-season pictures were released of Russell and Carmen Montero Mundt strolling along the beach in St. Barts, with reports stating that they are in a relationship.
Little is known about Mundt, though she is apparently a University of Westminster graduate and works at London-based investment company W1 Investment.
