George Russell

“Valtteri Bottas had removed the tag to the Mercedes Formula One team from his Instagram profile though it seems he has restored that in the last few hours.”

He added: “What Russell has done is put himself in the box-seat to be Lewis Hamilton’s partner from 2022 and maybe even next season.

“This is what Toto Wolff said to our Sky colleagues in Germany.

“He said ‘we have a fixed driver pairing for next season but you never know, the black swan swims always past when you don’t expect it’.