Mercedes boss Wolff believes Russell had 'maybe a year too long' at the Williams F1 team.
and gave the team its first victory of the season, snapping a win drought that dated back to last December's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The win only furthered Russell's status as a future star in F1, having stepped up to a Mercedes seat for 2022 after spending three years withRussell has been part of the Mercedes junior programme since 2017, and was supported in his charges to the GP3 and Formula 2 titles ahead of his F1 graduation in 2019.
Reflecting on Russell's rise after his Brazilian Grand Prix victory, Wolff spoke of his first meeting with the British driver when he pitched to join the team's academy. "I thought about it at the end of the race, when he walked in as a 16-year-old with his suit and his tie and his PowerPoint presentation," said Wolff."He's the first of our new junior programme that has won a race.
"Obviously Lewis has been there forever, and is the most successful of the ones that have graduated from our junior academy. But six years later, [Russell is] a grand prix race winner. We've always set hard targets. You've got to win GP3, you've got to win F2, and he did that in his rookie seasons."But in any case, today the most relevant [thing] is that he's a grand prix winner and a deserving grand prix winner.
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