Ex-DTM winner Tom Blomqvist remembers BMW’s young driver test in 2015, when current Mercedes F1 driver George Russell stunned everyone in Jerez
This weekend is a dream come true for George Russell as the 24-year-old enters his first season as a regular driver for Formula One World Championship team Mercedes alongside superstar Lewis Hamilton. But only a few people know that the British super talent was about to enter the DTM five years ago – at Silver Arrow rival BMW, of all places!
In December 2015, the then 17-year-old, who only finished sixth in his first year in the Formula 3 Euro Series, was invited by the Munich-based company to the DTM Young Driver Test in Jerez. And even reference driver Tom Blomqvist was amazed by the youngster’s speed at his DTM debut.
“He was super-fast in this test in the DTM car,” “I had to do a few laps at lunchtime, but he snuffed me! It was also down to the conditions, of course, but he was really good. “
Russell “more than half a second quicker “
on test.
In fact, Russell, who then joined current BMW factory drivers Jesse Krohn and Alex Sims and Swiss Louis Deletraz for a three-day test in mild conditions, running the entire first day and the morning of the second day, was the fastest man on track.
“He was much faster than the other guys,” Blomqvist said. “I can’t remember exactly, but the difference was more than half a second. And he was also faster than me, but you can’t tell much from that because he was driving in the morning and I was driving at noon in the heat,” says the now 28-year-old, who only had around ten minutes of driving time at the time.
The job of Blomqvist, who took his only DTM victory in Oschersleben in 2015, was to provide the reference data for the junior drivers back then. “And if there were any questions, I was there for the drivers. Because it’s always good to talk to a driver when you’re driving a DTM car for the first time. “
Blomqvist had to pick Russell up from the airport
How Russell was remembered by him at the time? “You could clearly see his great confidence,” says the son of rally legend Stig Blomqvist. “He was very focused, even though he was incredibly young. He asked a lot of questions, was very interested in the details. “
In addition, the current Mercedes driver did not have a driving licence at the time. “The first time, I had to pick him up at the airport because he was too young and wasn’t allowed to drive,” Blomqvist grins.
Even today, Blomqvist can hardly believe how quickly Russell took to the DTM prototypes of the time, even though he had no experience whatsoever with cars with roofs. “The most impressive thing was really his speed – especially in qualifying mode with fresh tyres,” Blomqvist said.
Why Russell didn’t end up in the DTM after all
“The way he drove the car – he had it figured out very quickly. I don’t know if it was because his driving style suited the DTM car so well, but he had adjusted very quickly.”
After the test, Blomqvist lost track of Russell, even though he said he was an “unofficial reserve driver” at BMW for the DTM in 2016 and was on the verge of signing a contract as a regular driver in 2017, as he told the ‘Beyond the Grid’ podcast two years ago: “It was a huge salary, probably the next best thing to Formula 1. And I was determined to go down that route.”
But then he got a call from Frenchman Gwen Lagrue, who at the time had just been hired by Mercedes as head of its junior programme. And the first driver he wanted to hire was Russell. The deal went through – and the super-talented driver went on to win titles in GP3 and Formula 2 before joining Williams in Formula One in 2019. The rest is history.