In Pictures: Mercedes' George Russell arrives at 2022 F1 Dutch GP wearing a Daniel Ricciardo sweater

George Russell turned quite a few heads at the F1 Dutch GP when he was spotted wearing a 'Daniel Ricciardo' sweater. The context aurrounding the situation is rather comical as Daniel Ricciardo explained it to the media later on. He said,

"George is a good one. He's one of the good young ones! I'll give you the story, it's a feel-good story, one for the grandkids! So he won't mind me saying this. So he texted me one Friday night. And it was a picture of his girlfriend on the couch, looking up the RIC3 shop. And he was like, 'Mate, what's going on?'"

Ricciardo then added,

"And I was like, 'Tell me what she likes. I'll send her a few things.' So we sent a few things. And I guess one of them actually fits George. So he decided to wear it today. So it's good. George is a good lad. Yeah, I like the kid!"

Moving on from George Russell, Daniel Ricciardo was quite candid as he talked about the support he had received from other drivers on the grid. He said,

"I know who my real friends are. Obviously, they publicly spoke out, but I did have some private messages from some drivers. For example, Checo [Perez] as well was one of them. He knows what it's like to be kind of hanging on to F1. I'm obviously not saying that disrespectfully, but a couple years ago, it was will he even be in F1, will he have a seat? And then a few months later, he's winning a race with Red Bull."

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George Russell optimistic about the weekend ahead in Zandvoort

George Russell was quite optimistic about Mercedes' prospects this weekend. The weekend started off well for the team as Russell topped the first practice session. Mercedes was quite competitive during the other stages as well. Talking about the team's prospects after a productive day, he said,

"The car's working better than this time last week and it's going to be close tomorrow, McLaren will be up there and Aston Martin too. We know qualifying is our weak point and the race will come towards us - our race pace is looking pretty strong - but you've got to be starting in the right position."

He also talked about some of the challenges he faced and the responsiveness of the car,

"It was tricky out there because the timing screens were down so we couldn't see where our long run pace was definitively, but we know it's in a relatively good spot. We're closer on Friday than we've been in a while so that's promising for tomorrow. The DRS on the banking is pretty cool, it's incredible how much grip you get with this banking and on turn 3 here, you throw the car in and it just grips - it's a great feeling."

George Russell scored his first-ever pole position at the F1 Hungarian GP. It will be very interesting to see what kind of result Mercedes is able to pull out this weekend.