Russell had won the 2017 GP3 Series as a rookie with ART, fulfilling the first of two explicit targets set by Mercedes boss Toto Wolff upon signing him to the Mercedes Junior Team: win GP3, then win Formula 2. ART promoted him directly to its Formula 2 outfit for 2018, while Mercedes elevated him to first-team reserve driver. The grid he joined featured multiple future Formula One regulars: Norris with Carlin, Albon at DAMS, de Vries at Prema, and Nicholas Latifi elsewhere.
The season did not begin with Russell at the front. After ten rounds Norris led the championship, and Carlin dominated the teams' standings. Russell and his rivals acknowledged that in practice the spec-series engines varied between teams; Albon and Norris credited Russell with the strongest engine, while Russell felt Norris's package was early-season competitive.
Russell's campaign turned at mid-season. He finished first or second in five of the following six races, qualifying in the top four at every round bar one engine-trouble exception. His victories came in a productive cluster — feature races and sprints in which he converted qualifying pace into clean race wins — building a lead that Norris could not match despite consistent results. Russell clinched the championship with 68 points to spare over Norris by the season's end.
The 2018 F2 field has retrospectively been regarded as one of the most talent-dense in the series' history. Norris joined McLaren for 2019 and went on to win the 2025 Formula One World Drivers' Championship. Albon became a long-term Williams Formula One driver and a consistent points scorer. De Vries, who finished behind Russell after a competitive season, claimed both the 2019 F2 title and the 2020–21 Formula E World Championship. Latifi raced in Formula One from 2020 to 2022 with Williams.
Russell's 2018 title matched the achievement of Charles Leclerc in 2017 — GP3 champion one year, F2 champion the next, both as rookies. He became the fifth driver in GP2/F2 history to win the title as a rookie (after Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hülkenberg, and Leclerc). The victory guaranteed him a Formula One seat; Mercedes arranged a three-year contract with Williams for 2019, with Russell remaining a Mercedes test driver throughout.
His Williams years — three seasons with a deeply uncompetitive car — were the unexpected test of character that followed the Formula 2 triumph. Russell nonetheless outqualified teammates at every race across his first 59 starts, earning comparison to his own junior trajectory and demonstrating that the 2018 title had not overstated his potential.