Who will come out on top between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell

How will the pair get on? Who will be on top? Who can consistently challenge Max Verstappen and Ferrari? Who can be World Champion? Those were the questions asked about Mercedes during the winter transition from 2021 to 2022. But it’s fair to say due to the team’s underwhelming displays since the start of last season, those questions have been put on the back burner. That story continues in the 2023 Formula 1 season, but with Mercedes regaining some form at the Australian Grand Prix it’s worth checking in on the Russell v Hamilton duel.

The stats

So 22 races in 2022, and 3 so far in 23, but who leads the way. Well as you may know Russell beat his Mercedes teammate in the Drivers’ Championship last season, and narrowly leads the way in the race result head to head. He’s finished above Hamilton on 13 occasions, with Hamilton just behind on 12, so there really is very little to split them. In fact it’s exactly the same in qualifying, Russell 13, Hamilton 12, it’s a rugby score almost. During their spell together Russell has a pole position, a sprint race win and a Grand Prix victory to his name, whilst Hamilton has none of those. And if we hone in on some 2023 data, Russell has a 3-0 lead in qualifying, that’s a football score. However, there’s next to nothing between the two drivers, in these details so we can’t draw any conclusions. What we can say though, and confidently is that Russell is significantly a step up compared to Valtteri Bottas. The Finnish driver finished ahead of Hamilton in the race roughly one in every three Grands Prix, and qualifying wasn’t too dissimilar. 

Australia

Russell out-qualified Hamilton by 0.136 seconds in Australia, and it was a pretty big session, with Perez out of the running in Q1 and Ferrari seemingly nowhere, all they had to do was beat Alonso and they’d lock out two of the front three grid places. A look at the telemetry gives us an explanation as to why Russell came out on top. Hamilton has the speed on the straights, but Russell is much better in the corners. Over a single qualifying push lap, this is advantageous for Russell because cars spend more time in the corners. The race may have favoured Hamilton slightly more because overtakes are possible with four DRS zones and slipstream. This is how Ferrari ended up with more pole positions in 2022 compared to Red Bull, who still managed to comfortably win the championship. 

Just before the braking point at turn nine, Hamilton peaked at 324km/h compared to Russell’s 320km/h. To a slightly lesser extent, this is mirrored throughout most of their quickest qualifying laps. For example, at the start of the DRS zone between turn eight and nine, Russell has a 0.260-second advantage, which Hamilton cuts to 0.106 seconds at the braking point.  On the other hand Russell could carry a higher minimum cornering speed. This is best highlighted at the turn 6/7 chicane. Hamilton’s slowest speed through that chicane is around 10km/h slower than Russell. 

Jeddah

Lets take a hop skip and a jump over to Jeddah, 80% of the track is spent at full throttle with average speeds of 250 kmh. It seems Russell got the most out of this. He was able to reach faster top speeds than Hamilton. The seven-time World Champion did gain some time back in the corners, for example, at turn 15/16, where Hamilton gained nearly a tenth. But it will never be enough in Jeddah to cancel out the straight-line performance, given the unique characteristics. 

All this and much more means it’s incredibly tight between the two Mercedes teammates. So far in 2023, it’s coming down to setup methods which isn’t surprising when the car is where it’s at and a bit of luck, but what we do know is this battle will rumble all season.