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George Russell’s move to Mercedes is “almost certain” according to Russian commentator Alexey Popov, and he won’t be replacing Lewis Hamilton at the team, he claims.
A potential Russell to Mercedes move isn’t new information, however both Mercedes and the Williams driver have refused to comment much on the speculation.
Toto Wolff, the team principal at Mercedes, said as it stands, their “full support goes to Valtteri and Lewis,” however admitted they were assessing all of their options come 2022, which includes Russell as well as several alternatives.
Russell is arguably the most viable replacement for Bottas, with some reporting they thought Mercedes could even bring the Briton in mid-season, something that looks highly doubtful will happen.
Mercedes have denied this is the case, with Toto Wolff, the team-principal saying that “unless he [Bottas] gets flu and can’t drive he’s going to be in that car”.
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Russell and Bottas are both out of contract respectively at their teams, with Hamilton admitting he was hoping to get contract negotiations sorted by August, with Wolff saying: “Yes, it should be [more than a year].
“We don’t want to be in a stressful situation every single year where we are absolutely flat-out trying to win races and needing to negotiate. I would rather that doesn’t happen every year.
“We just need to spend a day or two together, put it out there, and decide which are the difficult components. We will then lock the door and won’t walk out until it is sorted. That works best for us and it has worked best for us in the past.”
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