[3] He left the series after a poor start to 1995,[4] replacing the retired Kevin Schwantz at Suzuki in the 500 cc Grand Prix world championship.

His season is most remembered for the Laguna Seca round, in which he made a blatant jump start and ignored the instruction to come in for a stop-go penalty, eventually falling off, almost causing teammate Noriyuki Haga to crash.

His final year in AMA Superbike ended at the first race of 2001 at Daytona after a move to the HMC Ducati team.

Russell began serving as lead motorcycle road racing analyst for SPEED TV in May 2009, replacing Freddie Spencer whose European scheduling conflicts led to the change.

[7] In 2008, Russell made the switch professionally to four wheels, racing in the Grand American Road Racing Association in both the Rolex Sports Car Series and Koni Challenge (now Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge) series.

[8] In 2014, Russell spoke at Yale University alongside Ken Hill, Nick Ienatsch, and Jamie Bestwick about motorcycle racing and success.