Nico Rosberg drops George Russell salary tease in Mercedes contract stand-off

Nico Rosberg sees George Russell “fighting Toto Wolff with his own medicine”, at a time when Russell is yet to put pen to paper on a new Mercedes contract.

Max Verstappen has long since declared his 2026 commitment to Red Bull, yet Russell has still not signed fresh Mercedes terms. Rosberg believes salary and sponsor days to be the sticking point, adding that from personal experience, Wolff goes missing “when you’re trying to get better terms” out of him.

George Russell Mercedes contract: Salary and sponsor day issues?

As it stands, Mercedes does not have a driver contracted for 2026. Both Russell and Kimi Antonelli will see their current deals expire at the end of this season.

When Verstappen put a stop to rumours that he could join Mercedes, it was regarded as a formality that Russell would therefore agree a new contract. But, with just eight grands prix remaining, Russell has not yet signed a new deal.

“What of George Russell. Is there a little bit of an element of frustration,” Sky F1 presenter Simon Lazenby pondered on ‘The F1 Show’ podcast.

“As we understand it, the contract is there for George to sign, and actually, he’s the one that’s now keeping Toto waiting.”

With Mercedes’ 2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg appearing on the podcast, Lazenby asked: “In your experience, Nico, does Toto like that? Can’t imagine he does.”

It is Rosberg’s understanding that Russell is not satisfied with some of the terms in that new contract. Salary and the number of days which Russell must give up to sponsors, were the issues which Rosberg pointed to.

“It’s horrible to negotiate with Toto,” said Rosberg, “and he just disappears off planet earth when you’re trying to get better terms. He just disappears and just doesn’t even let you talk with him. It’s horrible. I suffered a lot.

“But now, it’s George doing the kind of reverse to Toto. It’s like he’s fighting Toto with his own medicine. George apparently is just not happy with a couple of terms in the contract. George is a Mercedes junior, so certainly he won’t be on a Lando Norris level salary, by far and away not, and George feels Lando is equal to him.

“George, by any means, can drive at Lando’s level and can win races and championships if he has the car. So of course, he will feel a little bit of that’s not quite fair, that I’m so far away from Lando’s salary.

“And then also, there’s things like sponsor days. Nowadays, these teams have so many sponsors, asking so much, paying so much money, and the only way for a team to give back to a sponsor is, of course, logo space, which is limited. And they want driver time. They want their customers to be able to meet George Russell, and so they’re using the drivers so much.

“And that’s really… I mean, I’m not allowed to say it’s painful for us, because everybody watching will be like, ‘Shut up, you know, you earn so much money, all you have to do is go to a sponsor event, shake some hands, take some pictures, and I’m saying it’s painful’, but it is really painful. It is really painful.

“So George also there, will try and reduce, and what is it, the number can go up to like 60 days or something, 60 in 356 days. That’s a lot of days. And some of those 60 days are split into half days. So it can actually be like 80 days. That’s a lot, like when all we want to do is go to the Nordschleife and go racing in GT3 cars.”

Sky F1 lead commentator David Croft added: “Part of George’s thinking is also, ‘I am a different driver. I’m a stronger driver and better driver than I was the last time I signed a contract, and I’m leading this team, especially now Lewis [Hamilton] has left, and I deserve recompense for that.'”

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Wolff recently referenced Russell’s new contract, speaking of work to “optimise” it, as he insisted that Russell and Antonelli would form the Mercedes driver line-up for 2026.

“We’re continuing with both of them, of course,” Wolff told PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher and other media outlets, “and with George, [he] has a few things where we want to optimise some of the travelling and the marketing days, how many hours we’re putting [in].

“He’s an experienced driver, and for us, it’s always important to talk about it. We want to have the best performance of the drivers, and I think we’ve given both of them quite a strain with marketing activities and media activities, and this is how we recalibrate.”

As Wolff had already foreshadowed, there was no new Russell contract announcement last time out at Monza. But interestingly, Wolff added: “I don’t think it’s going to be even a big announcement. We’re just going to give you the heads up and say we’ve got a signature and an agreement.”

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