© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
George Russell attended the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Thursday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: Thank you. Good luck to you this weekend. George coming to you. So Mercedes are P2 in the Constructors’ Championship, but just four points ahead of Ferrari. What’s the mood in the camp coming into the last one?
George RUSSELL: Yeah, we’re excited for the challenge ahead. It’s going to be a close fight with Ferrari. They’re obviously coming off the back of a strong race, but definitely I’d prefer to be in the position we are in than in their shoes. And I think we just need to go out there, focus on ourselves, try and be as fast as possible. And if we do so, we’ll finish ahead.
Q: So try and be as fast as possible. Do you think you will have the faster car here?
GR: They were definitely pretty competitive here last year. But we’ve been surprised a lot this season about which teams are fast at which races and vice versa. So we’re going in with an open mind. Qualifying, I think, they’ll have slightly the upper hand as they have tended to do so this season. But come Sunday, I think it’ll be a different story and we’ll have a good race.
Q: Let’s look back on the year. When you do that, what conclusions do you draw in 2023?
GR: It’s been a very, very strange season. It’s been a season where we’ve had a lot of pace at times, but never achieved the results that I felt were deserved, or were possible. So we definitely need to try and understand why that was. There’s been a huge amount of missed opportunities, in many regards. It really hasn’t been a smooth season. But I think when everything’s flowing, when everything’s working, right, luck tends to be on your side. But when, you know, you’re on the backfoot, you tend to have bad luck. I’m not one for believing in luck. I think you make your own luck. So we just need to be faster. And Lady Luck will be with us.
Q: George, can you compare the job you think you’ve done this year compared to last year when you won a race and had so much momentum going?
GR: It’s definitely something I’m going to look at over the winter, because the results were so smooth-flowing last year, I think we finished in the top five more than any other driver. And this year, I feel that I’ve upped my game in my quali pace and upped my game in my race pace. And we’ve definitely been on the backfoot. But we definitely have more competition this year, with McLaren joining the fight in the second half, Aston being there at the start of the season. But ultimately, we’re looking forward to getting through this weekend, trying to cement that P2 in the championship and then eyes on next year.
Q: Final word on next year, can you just describe the scale of the task over the winter? It’s 100 days today until the Bahrain Grand Prix, what have you got to do in that time?
GR: I think the task for everybody is massive. We’re all trying to catch up to the most dominant car in F1 history. So that’s no short task, and everybody’s going to have to come together, really focused, really put everything into it and time will tell. But I think we’re going into this winter in a much better place than we were 12 months ago and two years ago. So we hope we’re not going to stumble over anything. But as I said, time will tell.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (David Croft, Sky Sports F1) Nice to see you all awake, gents. Not sure how the jetlag is going. But I’m sure you’ve had plenty of time in the middle of the night to think about Vegas. Give us your debrief: the good bits, the bad bits, the ugly bits, the bits you’d change for the future.
GR: I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest. I thought the track was a lot better than first expected. Probably the only thing would be, it’d be good to see other formulas race. The track was always mega-dirty to start with and that makes it very difficult to race on when the whole track is pretty filthy. But, I think the show was great. Schedule was obviously a bit challenging, but added a different dynamic. Yeah, wouldn’t change a lot.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Question to Daniel, please. You said in this press conference, I think it was in Austin, that in many ways your F1 comeback this year is about being seen as purely a race car driver and not in some ways as an entertainer. I was wondering, could you explain? How’s that going? And how have you been doing that?
Daniel RICCIARDO: Aw! You say something that you’re like, ‘argh! , they’re going to see me do, like, one talk show and be like: what are you doing?’ Yeah, I think it was… I’ve definitely cut back on a lot of things, let’s say, outside of racing, for sure. I still have some other interests outside of the sport, which I’m involved in, and I enjoy, but I’ve minimised a lot. And I’m really just trying to, I think, make sure that… I think it always has been, but to obviously make the racing the priority. And, you know, if I’ve got, especially with the calendar now and the schedule, if I’ve got some time off, then I’m either in the gym, or I’m putting my feet up and recovering for the next race. So, I think yeah, just kind of prioritising a few things outside of this job. I think it’s also… especially the way the sports growing, it’s easy to get a little bit – I don’t even want to say lost – but there’s just so much going on. And there’s so many things that you can be doing, and it’s all really exciting and really fun, and I am… I love that stuff, of course because it’s obviously it’s a new experience and it’s great but I think probably having the time off for the start of the year I realised that I was probably just doing too much sometimes and probably even just not prioritising myself in terms of my body and my recovery and all that. So yeah, in a long way of saying it, just try to focus on that.
GR: I want to see the headline Now Daniel Ricciardo, prioritises his body!
DR: It’s hard when you don’t take as many topless pics as George. I hope I answered that in a way that made sense but yeah, that’s what I was getting at.
Q: (Adam Cooper – motorsport.com) Question for all five of you. Obviously, there’s a lot of talk last weekend about jet lag, and the late hours, and so on and so on. How have you felt in the last few days? What have you been doing by way of recovery? Are any of you still feeling a bit suboptimal? And I’m thinking also about Esteban, who’s not here today because he’s not feeling well. So, but perhaps that might be a result of the schedule we’ve had.
GR: For sure, it’s pretty brutal for everybody. Yeah, had an interesting trip over, with Pierre. We were flying together and we got delayed and diverted via Dallas and ended-up in a 24 hour diner at three o’clock in the morning for some breakfast. So that was an eye-opening experience. But I think since landing in Abu Dhabi I’ve been feeling fine. I think the lack of sunlight really affected everybody in Vegas, it truly felt like we were all on a night shift. I was waking up at three o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was set in two hours after that. So, that was the biggest challenge but it was quite a unique experience. And I guess we’ll find out this weekend how we’re feeling but I’m sure we’ll be feeling a lot better than we did last week.
Source: FIA.com
