[Formula 1]ジョージ・ラッセルの未来：2026年にレッドブルが動くのか？

Mercedes has been openly flirting with stealing Red Bull's star driver all year and now Red Bull started to return the favor Christian horn has given a very strong hint that George Russell could become a serious Target for Red Bull to sign for 2026 Red Bull may need to plug some gaps in its lineups after years of pretty chronic failure with its young driver program so he's willing to look outside its own driver pool and Horner says it would be foolish not to consider Russell who is out of contract at Mercedes at the end of next year Russell's been a Mercedes prodige for a long time paid his dues at Williams and stepped up to the works team just as its dominance ended and its struggles in the ground effect era began he's become a race winner with Mercedes though and was earmarked to be the team's leader once leis Hamilton finally retired when Hamilton's shock Ferrari move for 2025 was revealed earlier this year Russell's position seemed to become even more ass short and as Mercedes form has improved it's looked like Russell's patience might finally pay off with his team on a trajectory that could take it back to being a championship Challenger again but even if Mercedes gets there with the new rules in 2026 a great chance to reset the packing order Russell might not actually be around to benefit Mercedes has decided to promote its teenage Prodigy Kimmy Antonelli to an f1c after just one year in F2 as Hamilton's replacement and since Mercedes has been chasing Max for stappen very hard it's left quite a few people in the F1 Paddock and a lot of fans wondering if Antonelli and verstappen is Mercedes future lineup there is at least a chance that Russell finds himself frozen out at Mercedes long term and that could be to Red Bull's gain right now Mercedes is adamant is very happy with Russell reiterates how highly it rates him and says it wants to focus on maximizing 2025 with him and Antonelli team boss Toto wolf bluntly dismissed herner's remarks as him always trying to stir the he said Russell is a Mercedes driver has been forever and hopefully will be forever because we have a long contract with him maybe there is a way to hold on to Russell for many more years if that is what Mercedes wants but publicly Russell is actually on a short contract with the one team he signed a new deal in 2023 that Mercedes said runs until the end of 2025 while wolf is annoyed with Herer for talking about Russell in such terms ultimately it's wolf who is responsible for the Mercedes driver narrative going this way Wolf's the one who was Keen to promote Antonelli and has talked him up as much as he has while chasing the stappen at the same time and even though Mercedes has accepted it can't get verstappen for next year it hasn't ended the pursuit entirely wolf wants to try again later and the next opportunity will be for 2026 three drivers into two seats will not go so how does Mercedes resolve that when Antonelli was announced as a 2025 driver Mercedes never revealed the duration of his contract and as we said Russell's deal runs to the end of 2025 so Mercedes has given itself the flexibility to sign the stappen if it wants but it will have to drop one of its own to get him and given Antonelli's been touted as a star of the future that makes it more likely that Russell will have to go unsurprisingly wolf doesn't want to entertain wh ifs at least not about his own drivers and doesn't think this is a relevant topic until the 2025 season is well underway and the picture becomes clearer maybe the stappen is not going to be an option at all maybe Mercedes drivers are both stunningly good and so the decision to keep both and not bother with Max is actually the easy one what we can say is that Russell's potential availability is based on more than just being out of contract the circumstances at Mercedes could change so that he no longer fits into the team's plans and however this plays out at Mercedes we will probably find out quite quickly if Rebel is genuinely keen on pouncing or is just playing some games of its own after spending the last few months dealing with Mercedes cting a stappen her first talked about Russell earlier this year when trying to deflect from one of Wolf's initial remarks about luring for stappen away it was back at the Chinese Grand Prix in April and hor was growing weary of what he called noise being generated by what he insisted was a baseless attempt to get the stappen to leave Herer asked the journalist in his media session have you heard George Russell is out of contract at the end of 2025 maybe he might not be so Keen into 26 the market moves around the funny thing was that Russell's contractual status was actually well established as his Mercedes announcement the previous summer had already specified that date so it felt like herner just scrambling to move the conversation elsewhere but now he's raised it again in a much more specific Red Bull's driver deliberations context we can't help but wonder if it was way back then that Russell was already on Red Bull's radar Red Bull is in a driver crisis of its own making for staffen staying for 2025 and under contract until the end of 2028 but nobody believes his future at this team is secure because of various Red Bull issues including power struggles yoser stens Feud with Horner and the team's poor competitive trajectory even worse for Rebel than potentially losing its Superstar driver is that it has failed completely to create a contingency plan at least so far and has bungled the management of its own Talent program repeatedly turning to signings from elsewhere has ultimately not worked for sten's teammate Sergio Perez was a decent stop Gap but he's been clinging onto his drive for a while now Daniel Ricardo was brought back into the fold in his 30s as a fullback and Red Bull put him back in its Junior Team by replacing Nick D who was a baffling Red Bull recruit in the first place but Ricardo's been unspectacular and his career looks over for good and let's not go too far back into the string of Red Bull driver failures like the impatience shown to Perez's predecessors p gazy and Alex Alburn continually overlooking Carlos signs and promote him demote him sack him resign him sack him again Daniel kivat Saga meanwhile the best performing redel Junior for a few years Yuki soda is not even taken seriously as a senior team option because of supposed doubts about his mentality and approach so whether the stappen leaves or redel just needs a better teammate for him there is no obvious driver to step in that's why Liam Lawson's now in the frame to replace Ricardo for the last few races of 2024 which we think is so Red Bull can evaluate him as a potential perz alternative at Red Bull Racing next year he is at least a Red Bull Junior but that could mean he ends up in the Senior Team having never raced a full season in F1 that's as good as Red Bull's driver options get and it's still pretty chaotic herner's acknowledgement that Red Bull is willing to look at drivers from outside its own program yet again is where Russell comes in heret brought him up completely unprompted it wasn't a leading question that tricked him into putting Russell's name out there really any consideration of Russell has to be as a replacement for the staffen Red Bulls never wanted to pair the staffen with someone who could give him a hard time and Russell as a driver on track and a personality off it would not settle for being a number two the drivers have also had some run-ins on track together so while they're hardly more enemies this just doesn't feel like a sensible fit it's only logical to conclude that Red Bull sees Russell as a potential for stpp and plan B to consider depending on how the driver Market evolves and if red bullt loses for stappen maybe this is herner's first real admission the red bullt does need to plan for Life After Max Mercedes isn't going to give up trying to convince him and there have already been questions about whether Aston Martin could make a play its Mega Buck project has already taken some big pieces from Red Bull including the works Honda engine that for stappen been so fond of for the last few years and Technical Guru Adrien newie but we should also remember that vapen isn't just a target for other teams he's got half an eye on walking away from F1 on his own foran's made it clear several times he might not stay in F1 Beyond his current Red Bull deal but he's also hinted he could leave sooner he's growing weary of f1's ever expanding calendar the proliferation of Street tracks the pursuit of more sprint races and the increasing commercial and marketing demand F1 is putting on its drivers and a recent Feud with the FIA after getting a community service order for swearing in a press conference has revived forsten's feeling that this might not be worth it he says these kinds of things definitely decide his future as he finds dealing with such silly things really tiring his attitude is that he's already achieved more than he targeted and he's Keen to race other things so if f1's just not worth the hassle he'll stop whether the sten's tempted Away by another team or just grows too disenchanted with F1 altogether Red Bull needs a plugin and play lead driver which it doesn't have way in the wings there are decent longer term options in F2 title Contender Isaac haer and F3 race winner Arvid lindblad but they are not in the frame for 2025 seats and 2026 is going to come way too soon to consider them for Rebel racing so even though wolf was saying this is just Horner talking nonsense what lends the most weight to the idea that Red Bull would genuinely want to swoop for Russell is the fact it makes a lot of sense Russell's got his doubters but he is very good his qualifying speed is consistently excellent he's demolished Le Hamilton on Saturdays this year and while he has made the odd high profile error and has sometimes been overzealous with his race management he's also produced some very assured drives and is a proven race winner Russell is a world championship Challenger in the right car and if a stappen walked away tomorrow none of Red Bull's current options could claim to be at that level so Russell as a free agent in 2026 could solve a big red bull problem if for stappen did walk away or was CED by a rival team it would give Red Bull a lead driver it can count on and by some time if Lawson is showing promise but is rough around the edges or it needs a haer or a Lind blad or someone else to come good who knows where the driver Market will actually go in the next 18 months how many drivers redle will need to find and which options will actually emerge there might be other candidates for reel to consider like its former drivers signs and albon both are signed up at Williams for the longterm but would jump at the chance to get into race winning Machinery in 2026 and Beyond if Red Bull's in-house engine program is good enough and the Williams Revival is still a work in progress based on how ridiculous the driver Market's been this year we can't rule anything out but there is already a young race winning driver seemingly out of contract for 2026 so Red Bull would be negligent not to be seriously considering Russell already