Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff says George Russell is not being considered for a drive at Mercedes next year because it would put the rookie driver under too much pressure early in his career.

Russell has impressed in his first 12 races with Williams this year. He had consistently out-qualified team mate Robert Kubica and almost, though his FW42 chassis has not been competitive, he almost reached Q2 in Hungary.

But while other drivers such as Max Verstappen were given rapid promotions into a front-running teams, Wolff is reluctant to give Russell an apprenticeship at Mercedes.

“I don’t think that you’re given the possibility to learn in a Mercedes because you’re being put in a car that is able to win races and championships in a high-pressure environment,” he said. “And I think it can go terribly wrong for a young driver that has the talent to become a world champion if he’s thrown in that environment next to the best driver of his generation who has been who has been with us for seven years. I wouldn’t want to burn George.”

Russell is on a long-term deal to drive for Williams. “I think that he’s in a very good place at Williams, helped them to come back to form, learn and appreciate when a car functions well,” said Wolff. “He was seeing me after the qualifying and he was actually very happy that they finally have more understanding how to tune the car.

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“I think it’s this moments that he needs to learn to appreciate that one day if he’s given a car that fights for championships and races he appreciates that situation as well. So I think it would come too early and on top of that I try to be respectful to all contracts we sign and we signed a contract, we knew what we were doing, we made it with Williams and this is where he is and this is where he’s going to learn.”

Wolff said drivers like Verstappen are unusual because they have had both the talent and the opportunity to learn in a front-running team.

“These guys come into Formula 1 at a very young age and there are exceptions to the norm such as Max Verstappen that have been given an environment at Toro Rosso to learn and to make mistakes and then even at Red Bull was given the room to make mistakes.

“It’s impressive to see his progression in all kind of aspects. As a personality there’s not one bad word about Honda, only good words about his team, the commitment to the team and that is absolutely the right behaviour of a driver. We wouldn’t expect anything else.

“But he was also given the possibility, even though he’s extremely talented and well developed by his environment, he was given the possibility to learn which is certainly a strength of Red Bull and the Toro Rosso situation.”

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2019 F1 season