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Toto Wolff praised George Russell’s pole position for the 2025 Canadian Grand Prix and hinted at the Briton signing a new contract.
Mercedes’ George Russell (X)
Toto Wolff has acknowledged that George Russell is giving the Mercedes team “all the reasons” to sign a new deal with him, with the Briton putting in an impressive performance to secure pole position in Qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix.
After taking P1 on the grid for last year’s race in Montreal, Russell followed this up by doing so again for the 2025 event, the Briton beating Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.160s with a lap of 1m 10.899s.
Speculation swirled earlier in the season over whether Russell was about to extend his stay with the Silver Arrows, with his current deal running to the end of 2025.
When quizzed about this on Sky Sports F1, after the 27-year-old’s stunning pole at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, team boss Wolff conceded: “He’s giving us all the reasons to do that quickly.
“We know what he’s capable of doing and he has been leading this team now since a while. He has the pace and the right attitude. He’s been a Mercedes junior [for] such a long time, and we are on track in doing what we’ve always planned.”
Toto Wolff is confident George Russell will sign a new contract and says they’ve agreed on when to do it.
“We’ve agreed on some kind of timeline when we want to settle these things,” Wolff stated.
“With triple headers getting out of the way and one race after the other now in June and July. But we’re going to get there.”
The 2025 Formula 1 season also saw another flashpoint in the ever-heated Mercedes vs Red Bull rivalry, as Red Bull’s protest against George Russell’s Canadian Grand Prix victory was dismissed by the stewards.
But the fallout has continued well beyond the paddock, with Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff branding the protest “petty” and “embarrassing,” while Red Bull’s Christian Horner insists his team has “no regrets.”
George Russell, who secured Mercedes’ first win of the season and shared the podium with teammate Kimi Antonello and Verstappen, seemed bemused by the protest:
“I think even Max didn’t know there was a protest going on. So I don’t know what was going on, what they were thinking. I’m glad nothing happened one way or another. It was just a bit of a waste of everybody’s time.”
After training in the field of broadcast media, Siddarth, as a sub-editor for News18 Sports, currently dabbles in putting together stories, from across a plethora of sports, onto a digital canvas. His long-term…Read More
After training in the field of broadcast media, Siddarth, as a sub-editor for News18 Sports, currently dabbles in putting together stories, from across a plethora of sports, onto a digital canvas. His long-term… Read More
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