Vowles compares Hamilton 'natural talent' to Russell 'potential'

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Williams team principal James Vowles has been giving his opinion on how Lewis Hamilton and George Russell compare and contrast as drivers, and how their individual approaches bring so much to Mercedes.

Vowles worked alongside both drivers at Brackley last year as motorsport strategy director for the Silver Arrows, before accepting his new position over the winter taking him to Grove.

Appearing on the latest edition of the Sky Sports F1 podcast, Vowles was asked what he thought about the two drivers.

Read also: Vowles concedes 'customer engine' concerns for Williams

"Lewis has such an amount of natural talent," Vowles replied, adding that the seven time world champion backed this up by really putting in the work. "Every year, he steps it up."

But Vowles acknowledged that "what [Lewis] did last year was not good enough for the following year," which allowed Russell to finish ahead of Hamilton in the drivers championship in his first year at Mercedes.

Russell also took the teams' sole victory in 2022 by finishing ahead of Hamilton in Brazil in both the sprint and Grand Prix races that weekend.

While Hamilton currently has the upper hand in 2023 and leads Russell by 12 points, Vowles believes that Russell also displays prodigious talent and shows considerable promise for the future.

"George was a talent I've known for many years and really grew up into who he is today," Vowles commented. "He has such potential in front of him. He's very different to Lewis."

Vowles didn't want to play favourites and pick one driver over the other, concluding instead that the pair's different approaches to driving helped make the team better as a whole.

"It's not so much one preference or the other, they all bring something different to the table," he said, adding that they are "successful as a result of it".

"It's more learning from each of them as individuals as to what makes them tick and what makes them grow," he added.

"What they all have in common is they are all world champions or future world champions. That same dedication for going after every millisecond is inherent in all of them," he said. "That's the definition of F1."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.