George Russell shows true colours in four-word message to Lewis Hamilton after win

George Russell showed his class with a heartwarming reaction to Lewis Hamilton winning the British Grand Prix despite his own personal misery at Silverstone.

After claiming just his second ever Formula One win in Austria last weekend, Russell qualified on pole position at his home Grand Prix. And he led for a significant portion of the race.

But on lap 34, with Russell running in fourth at the time, Mercedes were forced to pull the 26-year-old into the pits and retire his car due to a water system issue.

With Russell forced to watch the rest of the race from the paddock, his Silver Arrows team-mate Hamilton claimed his 104th victory in F1. But it was his first since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix following several tough seasons.

The seven-time world champion, 39, was moved to tears and called it the "most emotional ending to a race I've ever had" after going two years and seven months without standing on the top step of the podium.

And Russell proved despite the glum conclusion to his own race that it is all love and respect between the pair as he reacted to Hamilton's Instagram post later on Sunday night.

"You deserve it, mate," was the younger Briton's reaction with a clapping hands emoji. That came after his team-mate wrote: "YES! 945 days since the last win and it's finally come home. SILVERSTONE I LOVE YOU.

"There's no crowd that deserves this more. This is love, this is family. Thank you all for the love and support. Massive shout to the team as well. Everyone in the garage and back at the factory have given long hard hours for this result.

"It's not been easy but it's brought us back to back wins for the team. Most importantly we didn't lose hope. We didn't give up. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU KEEP GOING. STILL WE RISE."

Russell also made a social media post of his own with a picture of himself congratulating Hamilton in his cockpit after the Mercedes veteran, who will join Ferrari at the end of this year, arrived in parc ferme. He wrote: "Congrats Lewis, you deserve it.

"Gutted to retire so early and a tough pill to swallow at our home race, but another win for the team shows the progress we're making. We'll keep getting stronger."

Russell admitted to reporters at Silverstone that he was aware of his car's issues well before his retirement. He revealed: "Ten laps before the failure, I knew I had problems. I was losing power.

"And then, yeah. Water [system] failure. No water to the engine. As soon as I went back out [after the pit stop], I was losing power. I knew from that point the race was gone."

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said: "To make him win again, the British Grand Prix, in his last race for Mercedes here, it's almost like a little fairytale. It is such a shame that we didn't have George.

"He had the pace and letting him down here with a problem... it is not great but I think we had a overarching result with Lewis, his last British Grand Prix with us and I think there will be more [wins]."