George Russell believes the big impact made by Charles Leclerc, Alex Albon and Lando Norris reflects positively on his potential.
The 21-year-old made his way to Formula 1 by repeating the achievements of one and beating the other two to claim the Formula 2 title in 2018.
And though his current results are dramatically impacted by Williams’ ongoing issues, the Briton admits he is cheering those who are better able to show their skills.
“Everybody at Mercedes and Williams knows I beat Lando and Alex last year [in F2],” Russell told Motorsport Week.
“I’m on the exact same course as Charles factually, he won GP3, I won GP3, he won F2, I won F2, so now that Charles has the most amount of poles and is winning races, Alex is showing what he’s capable of, Lando is doing a decent job, I’m happy for these guys.
“I actually want them to do better as the better they do the better it is for me.
“When my time comes and I’m negotiating or whatever, I can say ‘well I’ve not really been fully able to show what I can do, but I showed what I did last year and the year before, versus these guys, and they’re clearly showing what they can do’,” he noted.
“If they were doing a bad job it probably wouldn’t give the same sort of credit to what I did in F2.”
While Russell was the only driver not to score a point in 2019, his qualifying performance was very notable as he completed a 21-0 whitewash vs. teammate Robert Kubica.
And Williams have also sung his praises very highly, with deputy boss Claire Williams giving her assessment.
“I’ve been blown away by George. Unless you are inside this team you don’t really know how hard it has been,” she said.
“From the get-go, he has really behaved in a way that you could say is exemplary because it’s been tough for him, not having a car that he would like to have.
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“It has been tough for him seeing his peers that have graduated from F2 at the same time [Lando Norris and Alex Albon] get into machinery that is far more competitive than he’s got.
“But he’s one of those drivers that when he does have a [competitive] car, he’s going to really light things up.
“I’m very proud that we have a driver like George driving our car, flying the flag for Williams in the way that he does because he ticks every box in what we want to have in a racing driver.
“I just want to make sure that we can give him the car to really show what he can do.”
