While no official deadline has been set, George Russell has expressed a desire to finalize his contract extension with Mercedes within the next few weeks.
Russell is facing an uncertain future amidst speculation that Max Verstappen could replace him at Mercedes next season, leaving the Briton with limited top-level options.
There’s nothing new about the Verstappen to Mercedes rumour, which began last year as Toto Wolff publicly courted the Red Bull driver as a replacement for the Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton.
Wolff went on to sign Mercedes junior Kimi Antonelli as Russell’s F1 2025 team-mate, but both drivers are out of contract at the end of this season.
However, despite recording his best-ever start to a Formula 1 campaign with five podiums, including the victory at the Canadian Grand Prix, it is Russell who is said to be the driver who would make way for Verstappen.
Russell joined Mercedes in 2022 on the back of three years with the Mercedes-powered Williams team and has won four Grands Prix with the Silver Arrows. Whether a fifth year is to come, the 27-year-old cannot say with certainty.
But he’d like a decision within the coming weeks.
“From my side, Mercedes manage me as well, so it’s not really a deadline in my hands as such. So, yeah, not really. And I’m not even thinking about it right now.
“Obviously, there’s a lot of questions about it. But the more we speak, the less we speak about it, nothing really changes.
“It’ll happen when the time is right. I expect probably in the next couple of weeks, probably something to happen.
“But, yeah, we’ll need to wait and see.”
Russell’s couple of weeks coincides with Wolff’s summer break target after the team principal said he wants to have a decision for all parties involved when F1 breaks for its traditional holiday after the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Speaking with the media, including PlanetF1.com, Wolff said: “You need to be respectable towards the stakeholders in all of that process. The organisation, the drivers, everybody, you need to understand the way forward.
“And I don’t want to be sadistic in letting a driver wait, not taking any decisions when it should be taken.
“Obviously, there’s lots of discussions around, and I’ve been open with it and transparent and at a certain stage, until the summer break, we need to know. Until the summer break, everything is going to be done.”
Pressed on whether that meant before or after the summer break, Wolff smiled and said: “Maybe in the middle.”
But as the weeks, and the rumours, rumble on, former F1 team boss Guenther Steiner has pondered whether games are being played between Russell and Wolff.
There has been speculation that Russell was offered a one-year extension for F1 2026, which would leave the door open for Verstappen to parachute in if Red Bull fumble the all-new regulations, but that the Briton turned it down.
Steiner says money could also be a factor, salary-wise for Russell and Wolff betting on Antonelli being his driver for the future.
“I think they want to give George a one-year contract to have the possibility of having Max in ’27, and George obviously says, ‘I don’t want a one-year contract. I want three years’, something like this,” the former Haas F1 team boss told the Red Flags podcast. “Or George is [complaining] about money, and Toto just wants to put the heat on him.
“I don’t know the inside, but there could be a lot of things why this has played out like this.
“But I think the biggest thing is, I would think Max says, ‘in ’26 I stay with Red Bull, see where everybody ends up performance-wise, and then maybe I make a change for ’27’.
“Because I think he can do that as well, like every year with the performance of the car, but obviously Mercedes needs to have a place in ’27 for him.
“And obviously, Toto is putting his money on Kimi, that in ’27 he will be good because he has then had two years in Formula 1. And I guess the offer for George is a one-year contract. And George is saying, ‘No, I want three years’.”
Russell’s options for a top-level team, should he lose his Mercedes seat to Verstappen, are limited to a straight swap with the Dutchman to join Red Bull. Alpine is another option, as is F1’s 11th team Cadillac.
