Russell was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, to father Steve and mother Alison. His father managed a business selling seeds and pulses, which he sold in 2012 to fund his son's junior racing career. Russell is the youngest of three siblings, including sister Cara and brother Benjy, and grew up in Tydd St Giles/Wisbech and Castle Rising. He took up karting at the age of seven, following Benjy, a competitive karter who won the 2007 Super 1 National Kart Championship in the Rotax Max category; Russell picked up his number 63 from the kart his brother rented at the time. Growing up, his father would intentionally overstate his lap times to motivate him to drive faster. Russell attended Wisbech Grammar School but shifted to homeschooling to devote more time to racing, and at 18 moved to Milton Keynes to be closer to his junior racing team.
Russell began karting in 2006 and progressed to the cadet class by 2009, becoming MSA British champion and British Open champion. In 2010 he moved to the Rotax Mini Max category, where he became Super One British champion, Formula Kart Stars British champion, and won the Kartmasters British Grand Prix. He graduated to the KF3 class in 2011, joining the Intrepid team with help from Alex Albon; his teammates that year included Albon and Charles Leclerc. Russell became CIK-FIA European Champion and won the SKUSA SuperNationals title, while Leclerc won the Karting World Cup. In 2012, he became the first driver in history to successfully defend the Junior European Championship. In his final karting year, 2013, he moved up to KF1, finishing 19th in the CIK-FIA World Championship.
In 2014, Russell made his single-seater debut, simultaneously competing in BRDC Formula 4 (Lanan Racing) and Formula Renault 2.0 Alps (Koiranen GP). He led most of the BRDC F4 season but lost the points lead to teammate Arjun Maini before the final race at Snetterton — which Formula Scout attributed to a mid-season case of chickenpox — then won that race to claim the title, earning a GP3 test at Yas Marina as a reward. His Formula Renault 2.0 Alps season was more difficult: Lance Stroll's father, part-owner of Prema, vetoed Russell from that team, so he raced for Koiranen, where he was outshone by teammate Nyck de Vries, who won nine of twelve races. Talent scout Gwen Lagrue arranged for Russell to join Tech 1 for the final round of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 season at Jerez, where he won the final race, finishing 23.057 seconds ahead of teammate Anthoine Hubert. At the end of the season he won the Autosport BRDC Award after testing Formula Two, DTM, and GT3 cars; at seventeen he was the youngest-ever winner, the BRDC lowering the entry age to accommodate him.
His BRDC Award win prompted him to skip directly to European Formula Three, where he spent 2015 and 2016. In 2015 he drove for Carlin, a Volkswagen affiliate, finishing sixth with one win and three podiums, second in the Rookies' Championship behind Leclerc, and second at the Masters of Formula 3 behind Antonio Giovinazzi. In 2016 he switched to Hitech GP, a new Mercedes affiliate; Stroll cruised to the title with Russell third, behind Stroll and Maximilian Günther. Russell later questioned the fairness of the 2016 competition, stating it was "almost laughable to see ... how wrong that championship was."
As Russell advanced, racing costs grew significantly — he estimated "£50K a year if you want to compete, £200K if you want to win," and his father spent roughly £1.5m on his junior career. Russell prepared a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to persuade Mercedes leadership to sign him. Boss Toto Wolff funded his 2015 Formula Three season as an audition and then made him the senior team's simulator driver; in early 2017 Russell officially joined the Mercedes Junior Team, with Wolff setting hard targets to win the GP3 and Formula 2 titles before progressing to Formula One.
With financial help from Mercedes, Russell secured a 2017 drive with ART Grand Prix, GP3's dominant team. He won the title as a rookie with four wins, finishing 79 points ahead of Jack Aitken and locking it up with two races to go. ART promoted him to its Formula Two team for 2018, while Mercedes promoted him to first-team reserve driver sharing duties with Pascal Wehrlein. After Lando Norris led the standings through ten races, Russell heated up at midseason and won the title, 68 points ahead of Norris. He became the fifth rookie champion of the GP2/F2 category (after Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hülkenberg, and Leclerc) and the second to win both the GP3/F3 and GP2/F2 titles as a rookie, after Leclerc; Oscar Piastri and Gabriel Bortoleto subsequently matched these feats.
Russell first drove a Formula One car in October 2015, testing the McLaren MP4-26 at Silverstone as a prize for winning the 2014 Autosport BRDC Award. He drove a Mercedes for the first time in April 2017 and made his Grand Prix weekend debut in free practice for Force India at the 2017 Brazilian and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix. In October 2018, Mercedes arranged for him to make his Formula One debut with engine customer Williams-Mercedes on a three-year contract while remaining a Mercedes test driver. He was partnered by Robert Kubica in 2019 and Nicholas Latifi in 2020 and 2021.
Russell's Williams years were difficult; the team did not produce a car that could reliably compete for points until 2021. At his debut, the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, he qualified 19th and finished 16th, later remarking the car was "four seconds off the pace." His best 2019 result was 11th at the rain-affected German Grand Prix, where he came close to a point but ran wide, allowing Kubica to score the team's only point that year — which Russell in 2023 called the most disappointing moment of his career. He finished 20th in the championship, scoring no points to Kubica's one. Williams scored no points at all in 2020, but Russell came close on several occasions.
Russell scored his first points at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, after a surprise promotion to the Mercedes senior team when Hamilton tested positive for COVID-19. He narrowly missed pole, overtook teammate Valtteri Bottas at the first corner, and led the majority of the race, but a pit-crew error fitting Bottas's tyres on his car and a late puncture dropped him to ninth; he took two points for the finish and one for the fastest lap. He finished 18th in the championship. In 2021 he clashed with Bottas at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, losing control on a wet patch and causing a double retirement; he initially blamed Bottas and slapped his helmet before retracting his claims and apologising. At the Austrian Grand Prix he qualified eighth — Williams's highest grid position since 2017 — but was passed late by Fernando Alonso. He scored his first Williams points at the Hungarian Grand Prix, then took his maiden podium at the rain-shortened 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, having qualified second; the race ran two laps under safety car before being called off. He placed 15th in the championship with 16 points to Latifi's seven.
Russell joined Mercedes in 2022, paired with seven-time World Drivers' Champion Hamilton from 2022 to 2024; the team placed third in 2022, second in 2023, and fourth in 2024. His move coincided with a regulations change that ended Mercedes's dominance. In 2022 he and Hamilton spent the first nine races testing experimental parts; Russell accumulated a 34-point lead after round nine, which Wolff attributed to Hamilton's experiments backfiring. He recorded several career firsts that year — his first full-length-race podium at Melbourne, first pole at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and first Grand Prix and sprint victories at Interlagos — finishing fourth in the World Drivers' Championship, 35 points ahead of Hamilton. 2023 was difficult; after a podium at Barcelona his results declined, including a record seven pit stops at the Dutch Grand Prix, a last-lap crash at the Singapore Grand Prix, and Hamilton colliding into him at Lusail. He salvaged third at Abu Dhabi to clinch second in the Constructors' Championship for Mercedes, finishing eighth in the championship, the lowest for a Mercedes driver since 2012.
For 2024, Mercedes fundamentally changed its design concept; the Mercedes W15 was fast but inconsistent. At the Australian Grand Prix Russell crashed heavily trying to overtake Alonso, who received a 20-second penalty for brake-checking him, and afterward called for automated safety cars. At midseason Mercedes scored podiums in six consecutive races; Russell took a pole and podium in Montreal, his second career victory at Spielberg, and the first Formula One race win lost to a post-race disqualification since 1994, at Spa-Francorchamps, for which the team took responsibility. He dominated the Las Vegas Grand Prix, leading 49 of 50 laps for his third career victory, and qualified on pole in Qatar after Max Verstappen received a grid penalty; the two clashed verbally over the stewards' decision. Russell finished sixth in the championship, 22 points ahead of Hamilton. Over their three years together the Mercedes drivers were evenly matched: Russell outscored Hamilton in two of three seasons and outqualified him 39–29, while Hamilton scored 20 podiums to Russell's 14 and beat him on total points 697–695.
In 2025, Russell faced a contract year alongside new teammate Kimi Antonelli. McLaren dominated, and its Lando Norris was crowned Drivers' Champion at the final race. Russell opened with four podiums in six races and was widely praised for an adaptive second place at the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix despite faulty brakes and electronics. At Montreal he controlled the race start to finish for his maiden Formula One hat-trick. He scored a podium at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and at Barcelona was hit on track by Verstappen, who received a time penalty costing him nine championship points. After a second place at Baku while struggling with a respiratory illness, Russell took a surprise pole and victory at the Singapore Grand Prix, prompting Mercedes to announce he had re-signed for 2026 with a reported salary raised to £30m/year. He finished fourth in the championship with 319 points, 169 ahead of Antonelli; Autosport ranked him the second-best driver in motorsport. Heading into 2026's major regulation change, Russell claimed the Drivers' Championship lead for the first time in his career by winning the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from pole, followed by a second place at Shanghai; after a difficult weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix he sat nine points adrift of Antonelli.
Russell favours smooth inputs, car control, and using the full width of the track to exit a corner, and has been noted for controlling cars unstable on corner entry. Jolyon Palmer notes he takes particularly wide exits to generate speed. His racing has been described as "analytical" and "situational." His early style was compared to Jenson Button; since joining Mercedes he adopted more aggressive V-shaped corner approaches, drawing comparisons to Mika Häkkinen. He has consistently been praised for qualifying pace, earning the nickname "Mr. Saturday" at Williams, where he outqualified Kubica and Latifi 57 of 59 times; at Mercedes he became the only teammate to outqualify Hamilton head-to-head during their time together. Karun Chandhok called him "generally one of the cleanest racers" in F1; at the 2022 British Grand Prix he jumped out of his car to check on Zhou Guanyu after a major crash, triggering his own retirement. His racecraft has drawn some criticism for not always converting high grid positions, and his tyre management has been alternately praised and criticised. After the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, where Motor Sport thought he botched a likely win, he admitted needing to "dial down the risk/reward" of his driving.
Russell holds the record for most pit stops in a single race (7 at the 2023 Dutch Grand Prix), shared with Lance Stroll, Liam Lawson, and Alain Prost. He and Verstappen are one of two sets of drivers to tie for pole in Formula One history, at the 2024 Canadian Grand Prix, and tied again for P3 at the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix. At the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix he became the sixth driver in Formula One history to lose a race win by disqualification. Since 2021 he has served as a director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, relaying the paddock's concerns about safety, racing quality, and the junior driver pipeline. The GB4 Championship awards the George Russell Pole Position Cup to the season's most prolific polesitter. He has appeared in Formula 1: Drive to Survive, whose coverage has focused on his efforts to join and stay at Mercedes.
Since 2020, Russell has been in a relationship with Carmen Montero Mundt; the couple reside in Monaco, where he moved in 2022. Within Formula One he is friends with Albon, Norris, and Leclerc, with whom he and Albon streamed racing games on Twitch during the COVID-19 pandemic, and with Alonso, who has called him a "future world champ". Apart from Formula One he enjoys padel and free-diving, is a fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club, and is vocal about mental health, working with a psychologist that he says helps him perform better on track.
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