George Russell in his first year as an official driver Mercedes he is second in the drivers' championship. His first podium of the season at Melbourne, second in his career after that of Spa 2021, has rekindled hope at home Mercedes, who, step by step is trying to get back into the game, and limit the effects of a project that is perhaps too ambitious.
A difficult start to the season. There Mercedes he had more problems managing porpoising, a phenomenon linked to the nature of single-seaters with ground effect and which leads to excessive jumping of the car on the track. However, second place in both the drivers' and constructors' championships for the team of Brackley it is a signal that gives strong conviction about the potential of the W13, still far from that shown by F1-75 and RB18, which, however, unlike the others, has problems of a different nature and has already had to retire 3 cars in 3 races.
“Right now we have this big difficulty that we are trying to solve" he has declared Russell to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 “It's not a disaster, but in any case it compromises our lap times a bit, and we are doing our best to improve in this respect. All the teams have realized their respective potential or weaknesses: for example, in Melbourne we saw Ferrari go over the limit, but all of us are learning gradually, so much so that some teams have not even encountered any porpoising, and we need to understand how they did it”.
Furthermore, also from an engine point of view, the Mercedes and the satellite teams that share the engine of the three-pointed star team, seem not to have released the expected power, net of Ferrari which, on the other hand, has also made a significant step forward on the engine level, as demonstrated by the good performance of the Alfa Romeo e Haas.
“I don't know how long it will take to arrive at a solution, but our problems cannot last forever” in fact he then added Russell “However, other issues outside of porpoising must be considered, such as the minimum weight of the cars, and we ourselves know that we do not have the lightest car available, without forgetting the performance of the power units. Obviously, a very clear regulation must be respected, but at the same time we can still focus on developments and updates that can help us extract the maximum potential of the engine.
The gap with Red Bull and Ferrari will have to be closed race after race, and Imola should have acted as a bridge for updates capable of solving some of these problems. However, the Sprint and the rather unpredictable and unstable weather conditions led several teams, including Mercedes, to take a step back.
“Decent start to the package we have” he said Russell in press conferences, “but with a deficit compared to Ferrari and Red Bull. We have to keep pushing." Russell moreover, just last year here he spent a not exactly easy weekend, if not one of the worst of his career. However the Englishman is confident qualifying in the rain will present an exciting opportunity, a bit like a Spa.
“There's time to improve the car and recover, the team is doing everything. This weekend? The car is basically the same, but I hope I can make some small progress" he says instead Lewis Hamilton.
