George Russell: Mercedes ruled joint Lewis Hamilton request ‘too dangerous’

George Russell is glad that Formula 1 has moved away from its ground effect era. Recalling the physical toll from the cars, Russell opened up on the time where he and Lewis Hamilton looked to demonstrate.

Russell and Hamilton apparently wanted to drop one of the Mercedes chief designers into a simulator rig which recreated suspension movements over a lap. Unsurprisingly, Russell said that the team’s health and safety officer stepped in to stop that from happening.

Lewis Hamilton and George Russell Mercedes request denied

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After four seasons of Formula 1’s ground effect regulations, the sport embraces a complete shift for F1 2026, as smaller, lighter cars and active aerodynamics arrive, plus 50/50 electric and biofuel engines.

Russell described the F1 ground effect cars as “brutal”, and to hammer home the point, revealed that he and former Mercedes teammate Hamilton wanted to let a designer find that out in the sim.

The answer was no.

“We’ve got, like, a rig that does simulated replays of a lap, replaying the sort of suspension movements from the chassis side,” Russell began when speaking with PlanetF1.com and other accredited media outlets.

“Lewis and I wanted to put one of our chief designers in this car to do a replay of Baku, to sort of show how aggressive the porpoising was.

“And the health and safety officer said it was too dangerous.

“So it just gives a bit of perspective. You’re driving around for an hour and a half. You’re shaken all over the place. Your back, your body, your eyes… I remember the first year I went to Vegas, I couldn’t see the brake marker boards because the car was hitting the ground so aggressively, and I was doing 240 miles an hour, and you couldn’t see it.

“I spoke with a few drivers, and half the grid was the same. So yeah, glad we’re moving away from this.”

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While the cars were not that pleasant to drive from Russell’s point of view, they did not do his results much harm.

Russell outscored Hamilton, Formula 1’s most successful driver, in two of their three seasons together (2022 and 2024), while Russell’s 2025 campaign is widely regarded as his best yet, a year in which he won two grands prix.

Russell was asked which season he considered to be his best in the ground effect era.

“I was very happy with ’22, because it was obviously my first year at Mercedes, first year teammates with Lewis, and that was like a test for me to see how I was going to perform,” said Russell.

“And that was obviously off the back of ’21, when he was, in my eyes, probably the best performances I’ve ever seen of Lewis over the course of the season.

“But obviously this year [2025] for more points, more podiums, more consistency, less mistakes. So on the whole, this has, without doubt, been my strongest year.”

Russell and teenage teammate Kimi Antonelli will continue to front the Mercedes charge in F1 2026, as the Silver Arrows look to mount a first title challenge since 2021.

Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher

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