George Russell sees the timing as advantageous and thinks Lewis Hamilton’s departure will give Mercedes a “new spark.”

The shocking news that 2024 will be Hamilton’s last season driving for Mercedes before he moves to Ferrari for 2025 was revealed before of the F1 season.

George Russell believes that Lewis Hamilton’s departure from Mercedes can provide a “new spark” for both the organization and the driver. As a result, Mercedes is currently searching for a new teammate for Russell.

He is also relieved that Hamilton has decided to leave at this time, saying that his emotions would have been very different had he left after the contentious outcome of his title showdown with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in 2021.

“The team is starting over,” Russell stated to the Daily Mail.

“Lewis’ success has been shared by a great number of people here, but change frequently kindles a new spark for everyone.” Lewis experiences that, and for us here the following year, it ignites that.

“It’s a good thing Lewis is going now instead of in 2021, when it would have been tough on the entire team.”

After that season ended, Mercedes has been left trying to figure out how to rival Red Bull for the championship in the new ground effect era of Formula One, which started in 2022.

Russell thinks Mercedes “overshot” with the W15 in trying to fix the problems of its predecessors, but he has total faith in the team under technical director James Allison, even though Mercedes is still waiting for their first podium of the F1 2024 campaign.

Russell explained, “You can see why last year and the year before weren’t good when you look at the data and correlate it with how it feels. It was all at the rear and is now all at the front.”

“We made too many adjustments, which is the issue. Even though it was heading in the right direction, we continued and overshot. It proves that a compromise is always possible.

“We have some amazing new members joining our team. James is back in charge, and he’s not taking anything lightly. There is obvious leadership.

With Mercedes’ two-part W15 improvement between Miami and Imola making its rival “more balanced through the lap,” Russell claims that Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren have all fired first shots in the F1 2024 development war.

The problem was that Mercedes was still working “flat out” to keep improving, while McLaren and Ferrari—who are threatening to challenge Red Bull for the championship—had matched that move.

At the Monaco Grand Prix, Russell told the media, “the car is definitely more balanced through the lap now.” At the beginning of the year, we had a lot of trouble balancing the high-to-low-speed turns. And I believe that we have advanced.

We have made progress as seen by the distances between us and Red Bull and the rest of the middle. However, I believe it’s accurate to state that McLaren and Ferrari have advanced at the same pace.

Therefore, we must continue to work on improving the car. And right now, the entire team is working nonstop to deliver those upgrades as soon as feasible.

Mercedes is currently at P4 in the F1 2024 Constructors’ standings, 88 points behind of McLaren, which is in first place.