'It does help if there was pen on paper' – Russell opens up on Mercedes contract situation

George Russell has admitted that he is not “pressing massively” to get a new contract signed with Mercedes as he insists that performance is the priority – though the Briton also acknowledged that “it does help if there was pen on paper”.

There has long been speculation over when Russell might agree a new deal with the Silver Arrows, with his current contract running until the end of 2025.

Following the Briton’s strong Qualifying performance last time out in Canada, team boss Toto Wolff conceded that Russell was giving the squad “all the reasons” to re-sign him – but the Austrian went on to say that the driver’s victory on race day had no bearing on his future as the team already “know he can perform”.

During Thursday’s media day ahead of this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix, Russell was quizzed on what more he had to do to secure a new contract off the back of his win in Montreal.

“You're asking the wrong person, to be honest!” the 27-year-old joked. “Don’t know.”

Pushed on how the talks with Wolff were going – and whether they were indeed going – Russell continued: “Yeah, a little bit. No major updates as yet.

“It's not something that I'm pressing massively because, as I've always said, the performance is the priority, and I feel with the performance I'm showing at the moment – still in line with the performance I've shown over all these years – I've got zero reasons to be worried. But obviously it does help if there was pen on paper.”

The four-time race winner went on to give his take on why the process has not been done yet, as well as reflecting on why he has not felt the need to push to complete contract talks.

“I don't need to chase because I feel that I'm doing a good job,” Russell explained. “It goes both ways – I need them, they need me and that's how it goes. Mercedes are so ambitious, they want to be back on top.

“They need to understand and think how are they going to bring Mercedes back on top. You need to have the best team principal, you need to have the best drivers in your car, you need to have the best engineers within your team.

“Toto has made it clear to me that he thinks how I'm performing this year is as good as anybody. I think there's only one driver that you can debate in terms of performance, these are his words not my words.

“So that's why I have no concern about the future, but there's two seats to every team and I guess he needs to think who are those two drivers going to be for those two seats. I guess that's what the delay is.”

While Russell and Mercedes enjoyed their strongest weekend of the season so far in Montreal, the British racer is not convinced that they will consistently experience that level of performance going forwards.

“I think the performance of Canada was definitely a bit of a one-off,” said Russell. “We were on pole last year in Canada, we probably should have won the race, and our car performs really well when the tyres are not overheating, so on tracks where it's low-speed corners, where it's smooth tarmac, hopefully when the temperature is down.

“At fast circuit tracks where it's hot, like Barcelona, like Imola, probably here [in Austria], it's not so good.”