Spyderidol:

No matter what happens in the rest of the weekend, George has shown that having a Mercedes in F1 is 99% of the battle to being the fastest on track.

Indeed and that does nothing to diminish the abilities of Russell.  The entire Mercedes package allows very good drivers to become great. It now seems as if Hamilton set up an experiment to show that Bottas is a drag on the team. He has multiples of more experience with the car and is fourth fastest in FP1.  That is not good for his future with Mercedes.