Who believes that Russell will not be like Bottas when he is racing at Mercedes? I do not know how they can shape him up and how they could let him be the future of the team after Lewis retires by telling him to move over as much as they told Bottas to do that.
I mean we all know that Bottas wasn't really racing, his job was to be near Hamilton and keep other racers slower, that way he would allow Lewis to have a difference enough to win it. He wasn't capable of doing that every race, and when it was obvious that Lewis would lose because of something, Bottas was given the green light as well.
Rarely ever he just went up there and won straight up. So I just feel like Bottas spent a whole career out of being a helper for Hamilton. Russel is young, if you force him to do that, when the time comes for Hamilton to retire, Russell will be still a young racer, and you would now have a racer that knows how to follow, and not lead. So it will be very weird if they tell him to win as much as possible, since that would mean Hamilton will no longer have a second driver to help him, but another racer he has to race against.
Well , I do believe he will not be Bottas but he will not challenge Lewis in his first year with Mercedes team. Why ? because no matter how fast he is , he needs to learn a lot of new and important factors that will make him even a greater driver. Also rumors for next years says that Mercedes might not have the front car but then again , we hear this rumors for years now and they still dominate. Overall, Russel will have it's own thing but only after his first year with Mercedes.
I think we will see a scenario similar to Ferrari when Charles Leclerc first Joined Ferrari he didn't make it to Vettel that he is there to competing to be the number1 or he is going to be his wingman.
His results made him speak for himself finishing better than his teammates Vettel at the end of his first season not with much point difference but still he announced himself that season and in the next one Vettel was poorly underperformed due that he was told to be let go at the start of the season.
It's not going to be 100 percent the same because Toto Wolf is not Mattia Benotto and Vettel is not as cool with things as Hamilton so again Russel need to make results that speaks for itself, and maybe Hamilton gets in his mind that this is the end of the road for him and time to let someone else get to the spotlight.