Why George Russell believes he is ready to win the world title

George Russell is discussing greatness in sport and how best to achieve it when his flow is broken by some loud whooping and hollering outside the Mercedes paddock home in Singapore.

“What on earth…?” he says, peering out of the window and over to neighbours Red Bull. The commotion turns out to be Jamie Redknapp and Micah Richards filming a plank challenge for A League of Their Own. Russell smiles, sitting back down. “Looks fun,” he says.

A Wolverhampton Wanderers fan - his father is a season ticket holder at Molineux - Russell enjoys his football. Tennis, though, is more his thing. The 24-year-old managed to muscle in on a slice of history at the O2 Arena in London last weekend when he turned up to Roger Federer’s emotional farewell at the Laver Cup and was invited backstage by the Swiss great.

“That was so cool,” he says. “We went on the Saturday morning after his final match the night before with Rafa. I wasn’t expecting too much. I’d met Roger once before at the Spanish Grand Prix [in May] and he’s an ambassador for Mercedes. So I kind of expected it to be a quick hello and a photo and off he goes.

“But he was just incredibly friendly and welcoming and we ended up spending about half an hour together. I was with my girlfriend, my sister and my brother-in-law. He took us all backstage to see the rest of the players. When I was chatting with Andy Murray he was chatting to my sister about dogs. What a down-to-earth, normal guy.”

Russell, who famously used to carry around a little notebook with him in his junior days, diligently jotting down advice or tips from anyone who could help him on his journey to the top, clearly enjoys being in the presence of greatness; soaking up their experience, searching for clues.

Claire Williams, his former team principal, recalls their early meetings with great fondness. “He was so diligent,” Williams remarked in an interview with this newspaper last year. “I loved the notebook. I loved how presentable he always was, and how eloquent. That, for me, was lovely.”

That professionalism and earnest nature has paid off spectacularly. Russell got his dream move to Mercedes at the end of last year and has exceeded expectations in his first season at Brackley, making the most of an inconsistent car to produce incredibly consistent finishes. He's finished in the top five at every race bar Silverstone where he crashed out.

It has been an impressive year so does he believe he can be world champion next season? Russell pauses. It would be easy to say he has not yet won a race; that he needs to improve further and become more consistent before he is ready to put together a championship-winning campaign.

But there is one thing you should know about Russell: behind the deferential, well-mannered driver, there is steel.

“Yeah, I definitely believe it,” he eventually says. “I mean, I've got room to improve. Of course I do. And I definitely do need to improve in certain areas. I don't think I've walked away from many weekends this year thinking ‘Yeah, that was the best performance I could have given in both quali and race.’ In fact, I don’t think there’s been even one. Maybe Saudi.

“But equally I feel if we had had a race-winning car this year, with the results we've shown, there’s no reason to suggest we wouldn’t have been fighting with Max for the world championship. I think that’s totally fair to say.

“I feel I can hold my own. I believe in myself. To be the best you have to beat the best and I have that confidence now.

“I definitely feel that if [next year] we have the sort of car we know Mercedes are capable of producing… then I’m ready to fight for the world championship.”

Russell has certainly held his own against his team-mate at Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton. In 16 races up against the seven-time world champion, he trails the older man 9-7 in head-to-head qualifying, but has beaten him 10-6 in the races themselves to sit fourth in the drivers’ championship, 35 points ahead of Hamilton and just 16 behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in second place overall.

Perhaps even more impressively, the pair have not fallen out despite the pressure Russell has applied. Russell, polite and deferential as ever, has said all the right things, praising Hamilton and readily admitting how unfortunate he has been in certain races rather than pointing out the instances where he has outperformed him.

That has proved a shrewd move with Hamilton coming back strongly in the latter part of the season: the 37-year-old has outqualified Russell at six of the last eight races. If anything, that makes Russell’s performances all the more impressive, given it is clear Hamilton is far from the busted flush written off by some in the first part of the year.

Russell insists Hamilton is still very much at the top of his game. “From what I’ve seen this year I definitely believe so. Obviously with the car we have had it’s harder to prove yourself week after week. We’ve had to take risks at times; to try different set-ups.

"But definitely we've seen on a number of occasions just how great Lewis is. I think he was very unfortunate in the first part of the season. But he definitely still has it. Low-speed corners, under braking. It’s impressive. In my eyes he is the greatest of all time. I’ve learnt so much already.”

Which brings us back to Federer. What is the common theme with these GOATs? Russell says what he has learned is there isn’t one. He notes how the Swiss took one route to the top, whereas Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic did it differently.

“I think what I take from that is you've got to find your own way. Trust yourself. If you look at Senna’s career, or Michael’s career or Lewis’ career, they all had a different journey, too.

“I feel comfortable at the moment with how I'm doing things with my small team around me. I feel like it's working for me. I believe I've got to continue my own path rather than try to copy and paste what Senna, or Michael or Lewis has done. And I think I’m on the right track to do that.”