George Russell thinks 2025 was his best F1 season ever, and he hinted that Lewis Hamilton kind of helped make it happen.

Russell said that when he was teammates with Hamilton, the seven-time champ, he really wanted to test his own limits, but it bit him in the butt. Now that Hamilton's with Ferrari and Russell is the main guy at Mercedes, he's dialled it back a bit, and he thinks it's helped his results.

After racing for Williams for three seasons, Russell got the call-up to Mercedes for 2022. In the next three years, he beat Hamilton in points twice, in 2022 and 2024.

With Hamilton moving to Ferrari, Russell became the team leader for 2025, with teenage rookie Kimi Antonelli as his teammate.

Russell did well, grabbing wins in Canada and Singapore as part of a consistently good season.

Media outlets asked Russell if he thought 2025 was his best F1 season so far.

"Yeah, I think so," he said.

For sure, my most solid in terms of performance, my head was in the right place, and I made the fewest mistakes. So yeah, overall, it's been great.”

Someone pointed out that he seemed to make the fewest big mistakes in 2025, and they asked him why he thought that was.

He said that Hamilton's leaving Mercedes made him go back to his old self after trying to push himself to the limit against the seven-time champ.

"I think that's just how I've always been, even before F1, and it helped me win championships," Russell said about making fewer mistakes.

But when I was with Lewis, I just felt like I wanted to push myself to see if I had more in me, to go past the limit and see what would happen.

Because in '23, I wasn't happy just fighting for podiums. I wanted to push harder to try and get a standout result, instead of just settling for a podium or fourth place.

That kind of came back to bite me. So I just chilled out a bit this year, and that probably helped me get better results.

Russell and Antonelli both signed new deals to stay at Mercedes for 2026, when the new car and engine rules are coming.

Antonelli bounced back from a bad slump in the middle of the season and kept Mercedes' trust. Russell thinks the Italian will improve even more next season.

It's always interesting to have a new teammate, just to see how they do things within the team, Russell said.

And he's a young kid with a lot of energy, which is really cool to see. And he's got a really good vibe with the people in the team, which is great.

But in our sport, it always comes down to what you do on the track.

But he's definitely shown he's got some high speed. So I'm sure he'll keep getting better next year, and you'll probably see those good moments more often.

Max Verstappen is more than just a Formula 1 driver. By 2025, he'd become a dad and a GT3 winner!

Red Bull's okay with him squeezing in as much racing as he can. It seems to help him stay sharp.

Verstappen's always been into sim racing. This year, he took it up a notch by racing in a GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup race at the Nurburgring.

Even though the 2026 F1 stuff will take up loads of his time, he's not giving up his hobby. He's got big plans.

Verstappen said Red Bull’s new engine sounded crisp when he first heard it. They're making their own engines for the first time next year.

Oliver Minzlaff laughed off Verstappen's claim that he pulls strings behind the scenes. He said that's not how they work.

Max Verstappen is planning bigger and better GT3 racing for 2026. He wants to team up with Fernando Alonso at Le Mans, if he ever gets the chance.

Right now, that's not on the cards. But he can still do the GT3 racing he's allowed to. He just told the Talking Bull Podcast that his plans are bigger and better in 2026.

Yeah, it’s getting serious, he said. We entered this year, but not as a pro car; we were in the Gold Cup.

One of the drivers came from sim racing, so putting him straight into the pro car championship was maybe too much.

But, we always compared ourselves with the pro cars, lap time-wise—that’s what we were aiming for.

We won the gold cup championship, which is just below the pro cars. "That was our target at the start of the year," Verstappen continued.

The drivers got better during the year and got a better grip on how to deal with car problems and balance.

Figuring out how to go faster and get the most out of qualifying and races. Next year, we want to be in the pro championship. We’re swapping cars, but I can't say which one yet. You'll find out soon. It’s getting bigger.

How good is Max Verstappen at GT3 cars?

Verstappen’s GT3 debut was kind of amazing. One of his best skills was weaving through traffic without a problem.

It's very different from F1, but he took to it well.

His sim racing helped, and winning at the Nürburgring probably made him even more keen.

With another 24 F1 races in 2026, Verstappen won't have much time for GT3 racing. But he's not dropping it anytime soon.