Hamilton and russell teamwork one of very few highlights of 2022 says wolff

After four races last season, Mercedes sat at the top of the constructors\' championship with 141 points. However, at the same stage this season, they only have 77, and are currently 47 points overdue first-placed Ferrari. Despite that, Team Principal Toto Wolff has expressed his worshipping for the “positive”, “productive” relationship between his refreshed line-up of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton this year.

Russell, who is in his first year as a full-time Mercedes driver, has settled into the team well, and currently sits fourth in the drivers’ championship, 21 points superiority of Hamilton.

And speaking without the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – which saw Hamilton finish a lap down in P13, as Russell personal P4 – Wolff expressed his worshipping for the way the pairing were working together, while whereas his regrets that Mercedes hadn’t yet given them a car to fight for wins this season.

“Yes, I’m very impressed with how [George has] settled in, how professionally and analytically he helps to assess the situation,” said Wolff. “The combination is one of the very few highlights I have at the moment on our journey – how well the two of them work together, with no friction; on the contrary, [they\'re] very productive and positive for the team.

“And I couldn’t be happier with the suburbanite line-up; in that respect I think we have the two weightier drivers, maybe two of the three weightier drivers and they deserve a car and a power unit that fights at the front rather than them stuff lapped. That’s not what any of them deserves.”

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Wolff moreover came to the defence of Hamilton, who’s endured some tough moments so far in 2022, including lightweight to make it out of Q1 in Saudi Arabia and his trying race at Imola, which saw him get lapped by 2021 title rival Max Verstappen. But Wolff was unequivocal when he tabbed the seven-time champion “the weightier suburbanite in the world” – subtracting that the issue was with the Mercedes W13 itself, rather than its driver.

“Well, you know in a way I have to protect him here. It’s not his low. It’s the low of the car performance,” said Wolff. “We know that he is a seven-time world champion. He unprotected up last year, him and us the team unprotected up and nearly fought for the championship.

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“The guy is the weightier suburbanite in the world, and he’s just not having a machine and equipment underneath him to be worldly-wise to execute... In a way I think it’s irrelevant if you come in eighth or 12th or 15th, it doesn’t matter; it’s all bad. But the real stars recover.

“There are none out there of the really unconfined ones that come into my mind that didn’t have unrepealable moments in their career where things didn’t run properly, and that is the specimen now with him since a long time. He’s going to help the team to sort things out, we are sticking together through good and bad times and today [at Imola] was certainly a very bad day.”