George Russell has revealed that he was virtually committed to racing in the 2017 DTM series with BMW, until he received a providential call from Mercedes that would put him back on the path to F1.
In 2016, Russell was racing in the FIA European Formula 3 Championship with Hitech GP. But a lack of backing for his F1 aspirations encouraged the young Briton to consider an offer to race in the 2017 DTM series with BMW.
Russell was set on joining the competitive German championship, when a call from Mercedes driver development advisor Gwen Lagrue led to a change of plans.
"I’d actually been unofficially the reserve driver for BMW in DTM," Russell recalled, speaking on F1’s latest Beyond the Grid podcast.
"I did a rookie test with them and that went incredibly well, and I was on the verge of signing a full-time race seat deal with them in the DTM.
"By this point, I’d sort of accepted I didn’t have any backing to help me get to Formula 1.
"At the time, none of the Formula 1 teams were overly interested and I was pretty settled to say, this is DTM.
"It was a huge salary, it’s probably the next best thing to Formula 1 and I was committed to going down that route."
©BMW
But out of the blue came Lagrue's timely call, when Russell was at his parents' house, soaking in a warm bath!
"One day I was just laying in the bath and I got a phone call from a French guy called Gwen Lagrue.
"He said to me, ‘Hi George… I’ve just started working with Mercedes and you’re the first guy I want to sign.’ And that’s where it started, in the bath back in 2016!
"The conversations were ongoing, I signed a contract that started in 2016, and officially became a driver at the start of 2017."
Armed with the backing of Mercedes, Russell won the GP3 Series title with ART Grand Prix in 2017, before graduating to Formula 2 with the French outfit in 2018 and winning another title, successive feats that paved the way for his entry into F1 with Williams in 2019.
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