George Russell: Lewis Hamilton is successful despite doing things "so differently to so many other people"

George Russell has given props to his teammate Lewis Hamilton for being successful despite doing things his own way. In an interview on the High-Performance Podcast, Russell termed Hamilton as a unique character who has achieved so much success despite doing things differently from everyone else.

According to George Russell, other drivers had a tendency to be completely immersed within the sport. However, he claimed that Lewis Hamilton is not like that as he tends to have multiple projects at the same time. He said:

“Lewis is an incredibly unique character. I think he’s incredibly inspiring with all of his activities and projects he has off-circuit. When you look at drivers from the past who are just pure racing drivers, I’m going to wake up living and breathing this sport, he does things so differently to so many other people yet has still had so much success along the way.”

To further accentuate his point, George Russell used the analogy of the three tennis legends Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic. All three of them had completely different styles and approaches to the sport and yet ended up achieving almost similar numbers in the sport. He said:

"I think I’ve used this analogy before but, when I look at [Roger] Federer, [Rafael] Nadal, and [Novak] Djokovic, three greats of sport (tennis), statistically – all basically achieved exactly the same achievements, yet they have three totally different ways of playing it."

He added:

"I’m sure they trained differently. When you watch them, they look different. When you see them on court, they excel on different courts or playing fields or whatever. Yet, they’re three greats. I think the thing I take away from that, and also from what I take away from Lewis, is that there is no one path to success."

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You need to find your own path: George Russell

Talking about the journey that everyone takes, George Russell emphasized that at the end of the day there is no fixed path. He stressed that you need to carve your own way to the top:

“I think you need to find your own path, your own journey, you need to have that self-belief that, even if somebody is going down a certain path, you need to follow your own course and you need to do what is best for you.”

Having Lewis Hamilton as his teammate and learning from him in close quarters has helped Russell mature a lot. It is certainly visible in the way he approaches and explains things.