Dee Thomas

He was the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Champion for ART and the 2017 GP3 Series Champion. Following his Formula 2 championship win, Russell signed for Williams in 2019, making his debut at the 2019 Australian Grand Prix, although he stood in for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix. Russell achieved his first F1 podium with Williams at the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. He is also part of the Mercedes Young Driver programme.

Personal life

Russell was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, to father Steve and mother Alison, the youngest alongside two siblings: a sister, Cara, and an older brother, Benjy. Russell took up karting at the age of 7, having spent much of his time around karting tracks and his brother Benjy, who was also involved in competitive karting. Growing up in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Russell was educated at the Wisbech Grammar School, before moving to Milton Keynes at the age of 18 to be closer to his racing teams.

Like his father, he is a fan of Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club.

Formula One

In early 2017, Russell joined Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport as a part of their junior driver programme. It was announced that Russell would take part in both days of the Budapest test on the 1–2 August, which followed the Formula One World Championship and support series races at the same circuit from the weekend before. In November the same year it was announced that Russell would make his Formula One practice debut at the Brazilian Grand Prix driving in the first practice session for Force India. Subsequently, it was announced that he would also drive for them in the first practice session for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Russell was announced as one of the Pirelli Tyre Test Drivers for Force India at the post-Spanish Grand Prix test in May 2018. He completed 123 laps for the team at the test, his first in a Formula One car with 2018 specifications.

Williams (2019–2021)

2019: Rookie season

Russell at the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix, he went on to finish 19th

On 13 October 2018, it was announced that Russell had signed a multi-year deal to drive for the Williams team, partnering Robert Kubica for the 2019 season. The Williams FW42 lacked pace and was the slowest car of the field; in most races Kubica was Russell's only on-track competition. At the rain-affected German Grand Prix, Russell crossed the line in 13th place before being promoted to 11th after the Alfa Romeo drivers were penalised post-race for using driver aids. He narrowly missed out on scoring his maiden point in Formula One, having been overtaken by Kubica in the closing laps.

The first retirement of Russell's career came at the Singapore Grand Prix when Romain Grosjean made contact with him during an overtake attempt, sending Russell into a wall.He then retired again at the Russian Grand Prix after suffering a wheel nut issue. The Brazilian Grand Prix provided one of the few opportunities of Russell's debut season to race other cars, where a late safety car allowed him to finish in 12th place, just 1.5 seconds behind a points-scoring position.

Russell ended the season in 20th place in the championship, the only driver not to score a point.

2020: First F1 career points

Russell at the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix, a race in which he finished 11th

Russell continued driving for Williams in 2020, partnered by former Formula 2 competitor Nicholas Latifi. He retired from the season-opening Austrian Grand Prix from a loss of fuel pressure. Russell started the Styrian Grand Prix in 11th place after a wet qualifying session, beating his previous best qualifying position. Running wide into the gravel in the early laps effectively ended Russell's chances at points, and he finished 16th with both Williams drivers struggling for race pace.

Russell crashed out of the Belgian Grand Prix after a stray wheel from Antonio Giovinazzi's car hit his Williams. At the Tuscan Grand Prix, Russell started 18th but ran in the points positions for most of the race aided by a higher than normal attrition rate. He ran in ninth place before the second red flag period but experienced a poor restart, dropping back to 12th and last. Despite passing Romain Grosjean, he was ultimately unable to progress further and finished 11th. At the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Russell crashed out from 10th place while following the safety car, an incident he described as the "biggest mistake of [his] career".

Mercedes stand-in

Russell stood in for Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, following a positive coronavirus test result for Hamilton. Russell stated in the pre-event press conference he felt "no pressure", following Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff's expectation that the car would finish in the top five. Russell qualified for second position on the front row for the race start, narrowly missing out on pole to teammate Valtteri Bottas by 26 milliseconds.Russell took early control from the race start and led most of the race, but with 20 laps remaining, Mercedes team mechanics fitted Bottas' front tyres on Russell's car, causing him to have to re-pit on the next lap to correct the error. He then suffered a slow puncture ten laps before the finish and was forced to pit again. Russell finished in ninth place and earned his first three World Championship points, two points for ninth and one for the fastest lap. Russell was praised by the media and the Mercedes team for his Sakhir performance.

Return to Williams

Russell performed media duties for Mercedes at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, but returned to Williams in time for practice when Hamilton was declared fit to compete. Following Friday practice, Russell said returning to Williams for this event was a "strange feeling", having competed in the faster Mercedes the week before. For the event, Russell wore a special helmet as a tribute to Williams co-founder Frank Williams and former deputy team principal Claire Williams, both of whom had left the team and Formula One earlier in the season. Russell qualified 18th and finished the race 15th.

2021: Maiden F1 podium

Russell was retained by Williams for the 2021 season alongside Nicholas Latifi. At the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, he collided with Valtteri Bottas after driving on to a wet patch and losing control of his car during an overtaking attempt, causing both cars to retire and prompting a red flag. Russell initially blamed the incident on Bottas, accusing him of "trying to kill [them] both", but later retracted his claims and apologised to Bottas and his own Williams team.

George Russell at the 2021 Austrian Grand Prix, he finished 11th in the race.

He ran in 15th place prior to the red flag at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but failed to make the restart due to gearbox issues. He finished 12th at the French Grand Prix, ahead of eight other drivers, later remarking that this was the "best race [he had] ever had together with Williams". He qualified 11th at the Styrian Grand Prix, missing out on the third qualifying session (Q3) by eight milliseconds. He was promoted to 10th place after Yuki Tsunoda received a grid penalty, his best grid position for Williams. During the race, Russell gained two positions in the opening laps but later entered the pits multiple times as his team attempted to resolve a reliability issue. He eventually retired from the race. Russell reached Q3 for the first time in a Williams car at the Austrian Grand Prix and started the race eighth, the team's highest grid position since 2017. He finished the race 11th, having been passed by Fernando Alonso in the closing laps. Russell reached Q3 again at the British Grand Prix, but was issued with a grid penalty for colliding with Carlos Sainz Jr. in the sprint qualifying session. He finished the race 12th. At the Hungarian Grand Prix, Russell came from 17th on the grid to finish a career-best eighth (after Sebastian Vettel's disqualification), earning his first points for Williams.

In the rain-affected Belgian Grand Prix qualifying session, Russell qualified in second place behind Max Verstappen. This marked the first front-row start for Williams since the 2017 Italian Grand Prix. The race was delayed by wet weather and ultimately only two laps were completed, both under safety car conditions. This allowed Russell to maintain his grid position and claim his first Formula One podium finish. At the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, Russell finished ninth, scoring an additional two points. At the Russian Grand Prix, Russell qualified in third in mixed conditions, before finishing the race in tenth. This would be his final points finish of the year. Russell's season ended with two retirements; he was eliminated from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after a collision with Nikita Mazepin and suffered gearbox issues at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. He placed 15th in the drivers' championship, scoring 16 of his team's 23 points.

Mercedes (2022–)

Russell joined Mercedes in 2022, replacing Valtteri Bottas and joining seven-time world drivers champion Lewis Hamilton. Ahead of the 2022 season Russell chose to radically overhaul his helmet design by dropping his previously red helmet design in favour of a predominantly black design with red on the sides only out of respect for Michael Schumacher. In his first race as a full-time race driver for Mercedes, Russell finished fourth. In his 63rd start, the 2022 Australian Grand Prix, after starting 6th on the grid, he achieved 3rd, his second podium.

Jamppi was previously banned from Valve-sponsored events due to a VAC ban issued in 2015, but has been unbanned following Counter-Strike's "New RMR Eligibility Guidelines" blog post.

Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson (born April 25, 1994) is a Swedish professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for Fnatic. He is regarded as one of the most consistent players in the competitive scene and is known for his clutch ability. KRIMZ's partnership with olofmeister during Fnatic's dominant period from late 2014 to early 2016 is regarded as one of the best duos in Counter-Strike history.

Biography

EGM was picked up by Druidz in 2010. The team captain panterspot stated that it was "because of his potential and that we liked him".[1] He grew into the team, excelling with heroes like Visage and Earthshaker.[1] The Druidz squad left their sponsor in September 2011 and instead took the name "Emocore" as they searched for a sponsor and transitioned into Dota 2.[2]

Dota 2

After being around on a number of teams during 2012, EGM joined No Tidehunter in February 2013.[3] In the following months they established themselves as one of the very best teams in the Western scene, getting picked up by the Alliance and winning the SLTV StarSeries Season V, The Premier League Season 4 and the G-1 Champions League Season 5 Western Qualifiers, earning them a trip to China.

This proved to be only the beginning of a long sweep of tournament wins for the Alliance. Indeed, a few months later they had reached the grand final of The International 2013, in which they beat Na'Vi in a thrilling best of five, to earn themselves more than 1.4 million dollars as well as the right to call themselves "best Dota 2 team in the world".

After a disappointing 11th-12th place at TI4 with Alliance EGM started standing in for Excalibur in the newly formed Team Tinker. A few weeks later it was announced that both EGM and S4 had left Alliance, and that EGM would be taking the spot of Excalibur in Team Tinker.

Biography

Dota

Drayich made his name in the Dota scene during 2007 with "Team_Team". Their line-up featured fellow swedes Loda, Akke, Bogdan, KwoM and Renji.[1] In June 2007 they were picked up by SK Gaming,[1] and so began the story of one of Dota: Allstars true powerhouses. Drayich gave the following statement as the pickup was announced:

When we started dreaming about sponsorship we always had SK gaming in mind. However, at that time DotA wasn't big and our clan wasn't really good either. Now when we got the chance to get a sponsorship we are obviously thrilled. We look forward to cooperating with one of the biggest names in e-sports. Lately our clan has managed to get good results in both LAN and Online competitions and with this sponsorship we will be practicing even harder and try to manage even better results.

Drayich (SK Gaming Welcomes DotA [1])

Drayich stayed with SK for six months, but left in December 2007 after a leadership conflict between himself and Loda.[2] The following day he joined mousesports newly acquired European squad, also consisting of fellow swede Mirakel.[3] Their roster would prove to be unstable over time but Drayich, who after a while grew into a captaining role in the team, stayed for almost a full year. Finally in November 2008 he decided to take a break from competitive gaming.[4]

Drayich would make a comeback to competitive Dota as he joined "THE SHIT!", a team newly formed by SyndereN.[5] They experienced some success as they became the first team to take a game off of "Blight.int" at a point where they were seen as invincible.[6] "THE SHIT!" also finished second in Farm4Fame 2.4, one of the largest tournaments in the European Dota scene at the time.[6] They were picked up by a sponsor, Online Kingdom, in March 2010.[7] However, in May 2010 Drayich would once again go inactive from competitive Dota.[8]

Heroes of Newerth

A few months after retiring from Dota, Drayich would show up in the HoN-scene, participating at DreamHack Summer 2010 with his new, and then virtually unknown team The Source of Gaming (TSoG). They would upset some established teams, such as Druidz featuring Loda and Akke, Drayich's old teammates from SK-Gaming. Their performances would earn them a trip to the World Expo in Shanghai in the summer of 2010.[9] They competed at the top level for about a year, and their final LAN-appearance would be where it all began, at DreamHack Summer, as they disbanded in August 2011.[10]

Dota 2

Drayich entered the Dota 2 scene as captain of Team Gamersleague in November 2011.[11] Other notable players on the team included XoYnoZnU who played with Drayich in mousesports a few years earlier, as well as German carry player Black^. Only a few months the team split up and the Swedish players of Gamersleague instead joined Reason Gaming.[12] However, a few months later Drayich was forced to retire from competitive gaming due to physical problems with his right arm.[13]

Casting

In Autumn 2013 Drayich was announced as a regular commentator for the Swedish stream of the ASUS ROG DreamLeague Kick-Off Season.[14] The league would be broadcasted in cooperation with TV6, a Swedish national TV channel. League games were broadcasted at the TV6 website, but a few games from the finals were live on national television. Joining Drayich on the Swedish stream was Bogdan, his former teammate, Wagamama, a professional Dota 2 player, Boberg, a Swedish caster, as well as "Slop3" who featured as a host. Drayich and Bogdan would proceed with later seasons of DreamLeague as well.

In 2014 TV6 once again decided to broadcast games from The International. Drayich and Bogdan was this time flown to Seattle to cover the main event. There was no scheduled coverage for the earlier offline phases so Drayich started his own stream on Twitch.tv and broadcasted the offline, non main event, games from home before leaving for Seattle. The stream had high viewing numbers, for being a non-English stream, so after returning from Seattle Drayich decided to continue casting, at first without sponsorship. After securing sponsorship from SteelSeries, EvilGhost, a clothing company, as well as TV6 Drayich has been able to make streaming and casting his full-time job.

Trivia

Drayich is a strong advocate for women in gaming. He has, among other things, written a blog [15] about why women only tournaments are needed in competitive gaming. He also allows swearwords in his twitch chat, as long as they're not gender based.

His twitch subscribers often refer to themselves as "The Family" due to the strict moderation in chat, aimed to have a more mature environment. New subscribers are commonly greeted byt the chat with people writing "Welcome to the family!"

Is married and has 3 kids, 2 boys and 1 girl

Has made several DotA-related songs available on his YouTube channel

Biography

Dmitriy was born in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. While he was studying at school, he played in some cards and PC games with his elder brother. He started with playing Counter-Strike and other games for fun, and in 2007 Dmitriy started play in Dota.

Dota 2

Dmitriy started with Dota in 2007. He started to play professionally in Krasnoyarsk region on Asus summer online qual and finished 3rd defeating PowerRangers.

After that, he, together with his partners, received sponsorship from Znation, participated in several cups (while usually winning top places) in Kazakhstan and Moscow.

Started playing Dota 2 in September, 2011. After playing for several mixes at the Starladder cups, he received an offer from the Belarusian team Power Rangers. He remained with PR for almost a year, gaining experience in the competitive scene. After leaving Power Rangers, he played for the European team No Logic Gaming, although the team struggled to achieve any outstanding results.

After the disband of Natus Vincere in December 2015, he was offered the carry role on the new team being built by Dendi and SoNNeikO. He played for the newly reformed Natus Vincere for eleven months, winning StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2 before leaving the team on the November 7, 2016. In the following year he returned to play for Vega Squadron for a short period, before taking a prolonged hiatus [1] for the rest of 2017. He registered with Double Dimension in February 2018 for the upcoming season.

Biography

DotA

ComeWithMe's first professional Dota team was "neXt!Please" which he played for in 2008.[1] During the following years he played for a number of Romanian teams, including "diXi" and "Wait 4 Team", who were picked up by "AirWalk" in March 2009.[2] He went back to "neXtPlease!" in early 2010.[3] During 2010 he made himself a big name in the Romanian scene and by the end of the year he was appointed captain of the quite famous team "The Elder Gods" (TeG).[4] There he got his first bigger impact on the European scene, most notably winning Farm4Fame #6.[1]

Dota 2

ComeWithMe played at The International 2011 with OK.Nirvana.Int, joining shortly before the event. Nirvana.int would finish 7th/8th in the event, disbanding to form into Ez Style (later It's Gosu) and ADDS (later Evil Geniuses).

ComeWithMe would return to Dota 2 a few months later, rejoining "The Elder Gods" a long time Romanian DotA squad which he had previously captained. Competing in some of Dota 2's earliest tournaments, ComeWithMe and his team eventually left their sponsor after a disagreement regarding contract terms, instead taking the name Poor Happy Guys.[5] ComeWithMe and his team would join Team Dignitas shortly before the end of 2012.[6] While initially posting impressive results, the team's performance dwindled, eventually disbanding and leaving the organization.[7]

ComeWithMe next made an appearance in the short-lived Darer roster [8] Joining on May 10, the team only lasted one week, with the new players soon being replaced by Ukrainians from DTS.[9]

ComeWithMe was again only briefly team-less before joining up with mousesports on May 24. He would compete with mousesports in The International 2012 West Qualifier. The team failed to qualify, falling to mTw in the Loser Bracket Finals. Mousesports was later invited as a back-up team for the event on July 4.[10] The late invitation left mousesports with limited time to obtain Visas for travel to the United States. This proved problematic for ComeWithMe, being denied his visa and eventually replaced by KuroKy for the tournament.[11]

On September 16, 2012, he officially left mousesports along with 1437.[12] He was later announced as playing for temporary "Team Y" roster in Star Ladder Star Series Season 3 which was later picked up by Absolute Legends.[13] On December 11 he, along with SexyBamboe, mutually decided to leave Absolute Legends over disputes over who played what role.[14]

On February 1st, 2013, he returned as a trial member for the QPAD Red Pandas.[15][16] However, on February 22nd, it was confirmed that he did not make it onto the official team.[17]

As of 29th of April 2013, it was announced that he along with Arteezy had found a new home at Kaipi, where he will play support.[18]

Trivia

Reached 10,000 MMR on December 29th, 2020.[1]

Statistics

Had the highest average deaths per game (6.35) of any core player at The International 2016.

Had the highest average kills per game (9.80) at The International 2017.