Mercedes F1 will continue to evolve as the third force on the board for quite some time to come, according to George Russell. The Briton admits the eight-time world champion team is a far cry from Ferrari and Red Bull, and isolated in front of the peloton.
“We are far behind Ferrari and Red Bull. We were even further behind in Jeddah and we understand why, but when we optimized things in Bahrain we were still six tenths behind.” remembers Russell.
“We hope to be closer here in Melbourne. We have to close that gap, but nothing substantial this weekend will allow us to do that. It will take time. We have to be disciplined and patient because we are very far behind. “
“With the cost cap, we can’t afford to throw things away and do trial and error. We have to trust the process. We have to make the improvements when we have complete confidence that they will. will work as expected.”
If the developments work as planned, Mercedes F1 will be able to get back on the peloton. In the meantime, the team must manage to keep its place and make better use of its W13 to keep its place.
“It will be in a number of races. There is nothing that can put us back in the fight, we just have to make sure that we maximize the result which is to be the third fastest team, and that no mid-pack car slips in front. It will be the case for a number of races.”
Mercedes are notably experiencing hard-to-control porpoising, for which the team has to make sacrifices in terms of performance, but Russell remains confident: “Having the understanding and the belief that we can fix it is thrilling.”
Lewis Hamilton has echoed his team-mate’s hope for a closer look this weekend in Australia, at a track where he has won every turbo-hybrid era pole position so far.
“I hope so,” replied Hamilton, when asked if he thought Mercedes would be closer to Ferrari and Red Bull this weekend. “I’m really excited to get in the car, naturally. I was buzzing…this morning, just super excited to get in the car, to try out this new circuit, hopefully it goes better here this weekend. .”
“At the end of the day, we didn’t make any upgrades. The car is generally the same as the last race, but with every little race we make a little improvement and hopefully it will get a little better. here. Also, we have four DRS zones which helps us on a fast lap time. I just hope we can have a good race here.”
