George Russell Takes Mum on Miami Hot Lap That Ended With a Potential Puncture

Hot lap videos at the Miami International Autodrome are insane. A driver buckles in a celebrity passenger and throws a supercar through Turn 17 hard enough to draw a yelp. Ed Sheeran has done it. Dozens of others have. What George Russell uploaded ahead of this weekend’s race is the same format with the celebrity quotient swapped out for something slightly more disarming.

He took his mum.

The video opens with Russell trackside in a pink cap, telling the camera he’s about to do a hot lap and that his parents are coming along. Cut to the bright yellow AMG with “F1 HOT LAPS” stickers down the side, his mother climbing into the passenger seat in a full racing helmet while George grins from behind the wheel. Both belted in, the car launches off down the circuit.

A Puncture and a Five-Star Review

The interview is where it actually gets more fun. Russell climbs out, takes off the cap, wipes his forehead, and breaks the news with the resigned shrug of someone who’s done this hundreds of times and still managed to bin a tire on a passenger lap.

“It was good. We got a puncture though,” he said. “He’s checking the pressures. Let’s see. It might be actually the tires are too hot, given we were drifting.”

Drifting. With his mum in the passenger seat. His mother, for her part, was unbothered. Asked how he did, she stepped in with the kind of review every racing driver dreams of and never gets from a journalist.

“Very good driver. The best.”

You will not find a more concise summary of George Russell’s 2026 season so far anywhere on the internet, albeit a tad biased.

Russell Could Use This Boost Right Now

Russell arrives in Miami nine points behind his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, who leads the drivers‘ championship after winning the previous round in Suzuka .

Mercedes won the first three races of 2026, with Russell taking the opener in Australia before Antonelli’s back-to-back victories in China and Japan, and the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian rounds were both cancelled, leaving a five-week gap before this weekend.

The pre-season favorite to lift the title is now playing catch-up to a 19-year-old in the same car. A weekend that starts with mum giving you five stars in front of a few million followers is, on balance, a good weekend to be having. The Miami International Autodrome has been kind to him before – he finished on the podium here in 2025 – and the parc fermé sprint format means the practice running he just wrapped up is essentially all he gets before things start counting.

The video humanizes a driver who can sometimes come across as one of the most corporate man on the grid, and it has the rare distinction of ending with a tire failure that nobody is mad about. Sunday’s race won’t be graded so generously. Mum aside, the rest of the paddock isn’t so biased.