it BAFFLES me just how underrated george is. like, no matter what he does, he's always overshadowed by other drivers. it's so rare to see someone praise george's driving. it's always "max this" "charles that" like please 🙏
and people constantly yap about how bad other drivers have had it, but no one talks about how bad george has had it? like imagine winning the f2 title only to be placed in a car slower than your f2 car. a tractor that gets lapped twice in one race. a car quite literally incapable of scoring a single point. imagine spending 3 YEARS in a team that was broke as hell. imagine spending your rookie year having to deal with a bad team, a bad car, and teammate drama. george was able to deal with both the psychological and performance aspects of the sport, yet i don't see any praise for that.
sakhir 2020 still baffles me to this day. like wdym george qualified 2nd place, overtook valtteri (who has been in merc since 2017 atp) on the FIRST LAP, led the gp for like 64 laps, until mercedes- the dominating team at the time btw- gave him a slow stop and fitted BOTTAS's tires for him. genuinely HOW does this even happen. he fell down to 5th, yet still managed to get to second, and he was 2 seconds away from the race leader when he got a PUNCTURE. he ended up finishing ninth since mercedes suddenly forgot they won 7 constructors' titles at that point. this is peak bad luck. (and even with that horrible race result, george still proved what an amazing driver he is, yet he STILL didn't get called up to mercedes in 2021). also he got the fastest lap and broke the track record.
george only got called up to mercedes in 2022, the year the car became shit. the second george joins the team, they suddenly forget how to build a car. yet george still manages to outperform the seven time world champion. yet no one talks about this?? no it's all "osama bin russell" or "does nothing gets a podium". george was 4th in the drivers standings in 2022, while lewis was down in 6th. plus, george won a race in 2022, while lewis didn't. you see people saying "charles destroyed lewis in 2025" and while that's true, charles didn't manage a race win this year, did he? and ik the cars are different, but the difference in performance is clear.
in 2023, the merc car was even worse than 2022, and lewis did greatly outperform george but whatever, it happens. this was the first season when a teammate consistently outperforms george in his entire career.
im gonna skip 2024, but the car was still bad. 2025, the car was still unreliable and unable to compete for the wdc. the point is, throughout george's whole career, he's had an uncompetitive car and horrible luck and circumstances, like belgium 2024 for instance. yet after all that, people choose to gloss over this. for example, when people talk about charles it's all "ferrari's ruining his career" and whatever but like charles has never had it THAT bad.
and george is generally just underrated in general. he never gets praise for racecraft or overtaking or ANYTHING honestly, and it's just so unfair. in all the videos i've watched talking about the 2025 season, no one mentions how consistent or flawless george was this season, or how he had 0 DNFS, or scored points in 23/24 races. and why? what's the reason for that? why do i hear people glazing charles 24/7 despite his many mistakes this year? or lando, who's glazed for "not crashing". 💀 george was easily second best driver this year, and was probably even better than max at some point, but i don't see anyone talking about that. he's even underrated by toto, as we saw in the horrible contract talks. like what does he have to do to impress people? he's literally doing the best with what he has, so i just don't understand what more people want.