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George Russell told Formula One rival Fernando Alonso that the “fight is always on” after sharing a clip of the pair playing ping pong. Mercedes star Russell will be in direct competition with Aston Martin’s Alonso in the 2024 World Drivers’ Championship.
The Briton endured a tough season in 2023 alongside team-mate Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes suffered with performance issues but now hope that they are over the problems that have caused severe inconsistency.
Russell will want to challenge for a top-three finish in the World Championship leaderboard. And he will find Spaniard Alonso among the competition.
Sharing a video on X of the pair playing ping pong on a plane, Russell wrote: “The fight is always on!! Throwing it back to an intense ping pong competition.”
Russell also wants to take the fight to his own team-mate this year. He insists he is not ‘satisfied’ with simply being level with seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and wants to be Mercedes’ key man.
It was put to the former Williams driver that he was often on par with Hamilton during qualifying, despite the more experienced driver often performing better in races. But Russell responded: “I’m purposely trying to push myself further and beyond, and I’m not satisfied with just being on par with my teammate in qualifying or whatever it may be. Or [2022 when] we were very even across the whole season.
“I want to be ahead. And that’s what I’m pushing myself for,” Russell confessed, adding: “I think we’re taking a clean slate into next year’s car. I think that the positive is we’re not scratching our heads why we’re so far behind Red Bull.
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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has told Hamilton to not give up hope of winning an eight world title. The Silver Arrows have trailed Red Bull by a massive margin in recent years, and Wolff says his team owe it to Russell and Hamilton to provide a race-winning car in 2024.
“Always believe it’s possible. You cannot start the season with an attitude of, ‘This is not going to be possible.’,” Wolff said.
“We saw last year with McLaren, what a huge step they made with a single upgrade. We’ve signed a two-year deal with Lewis, and we owe it to him, to George and to all [of] the team to give it our full attention in 2024 and 2025. I think it’s possible.”
