© Sam Bloxham for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix ltd.
George Russell says “some of the changes we’ve made since the end of last year perhaps overcompensated with some of the development items we did”.
In Miami, Mercedes is having another difficult weekend. After he qualified in P7 for the main race, George Russell says he believes the team “overcompensated” in their pursuit to solve their car’s issues from the previous two seasons.
“We know that probably some of the changes we’ve made since the end of last year perhaps overcompensated with some of the development items we did,” the Briton said.
“We have limitations with the car now, which is a totally different limitation to what we had this time 12 months ago.
“We did so much work to solve the problems. We’ve kind of gone too far in that direction. So we know we need to improve and we need to improve quickly.”
However, George says the team understands how to approach these new issues.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“Yeah, we definitely know how to [solve current issues]. I think when we look at the data, we understand why we’re in the position we are right now.
“And as I said last year, when we looked at the data, we understand why we were in that same position.
“And I think unfortunately, we’ve probably overcompensated to solve the problems of last year.
“And we’ve gone from this extreme to that extreme now and we need to sort of rewind and find ourself sort of in a halfway house.
“But when developments, when new upgrades take, you know, eight weeks to run to the car.
“You know, you learn this problem race one, race two, you know, you can’t just bring that upgrades to the next race.
“You got to put in the wind tunnel. Someone has got to design it. Someone’s got to draw it. Someone’s got to build it and then you are halfway.
“So I think that’s why it’s difficult when you’re on the backfoot to just suddenly make that progress and everybody expects it tomorrow. And we want it tomorrow, but this is the reality of F1.”
As for the main race on Sunday, George said:
“I expect to be looking forward tomorrow, hopefully no pressure from behind.
“But P7 and P8 we have to accept where we are at the moment. We are a step behind McLaren and Ferrari and a big step behind Red Bull. I think the result we showed today was the maximum.
“But I’m confident tomorrow, we will make a step forward to them,” he concluded.
