Yesterday at 09:15
George Russell has revealed the importance of setting "realistic
goals" in Formula 1, to avoid suffering from a "psychological
struggle". Russell has found himself in a unique position ever
since being handed an F1 promotion to Williams for the 2019
campaign, with a title-winning car having never been at his
disposal. When he joined Williams, the Grove-based team was very
much F1's backmarker, making the Briton set himself targets he
could achieve in the midfield. In 2022, when he replaced Valtteri
Bottas at Mercedes, the 27-year-old would have expected to suddenly
be in a position where he could fight for the title, given the
Silver Arrows had secured eight consecutive constructors' titles.
Unfortunately, Russell had to quickly reassess his goals, due to
Mercedes having struggled adapting to the current regulations.
That adjustment struggle has continued throughout the ground-effect
era, continuing Russell's trend of having to set goals which do not
include fighting for regular wins or titles. As outlined by the
King's Lynn-born driver, setting realistic targets is imperative to
remaining in the correct mental state, and avoid chasing the
impossible. "I think you learn that you have to take those small
victories," Russell said on the Untapped podcast. "You got to
adjust your goals to what is a realistic goal for this given
weekend, or what is the realistic goal for this given season. "To
win the championship this year is not a realistic goal. Of course,
we're working towards that, but if we don't achieve that goal, we
shouldn't be kicking ourselves, because we're just not in that
position right now. "And that's when we go into every single race
weekend thinking, right, we think we've got an opportunity to fight
for the podium here. If I finish in fourth place, I won't be happy.
If I finish in second, I will be. "Or on the flip side, if we
believe we can win this weekend, but we only come home in third,
that might be a better result than all the other races, but you've
underachieved compared to the potential. You have to teach
yourself to take those small victories, otherwise you're going to
get in a sort of a negative spiral of psychological struggle, and
that's only going to impact your performance later down the line.
"So, you're not doing this just so you're staying happy. You're
doing this to continue performing at your 100%."
