© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
George Russell attended the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Wednesday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: George, why don’t we start with you? Mercedes were difficult to read at the pre-season test, and it feels they were a little bit difficult to read at the first race weekend as well. What conclusions did you draw from the Bahrain Grand Prix?
George RUSSELL: I think the conclusions we drew were that the car has potential. I think when we saw the pace on FP2, that was genuine, Lewis and I were P1 and P2. I think probably not everybody turned up, but we were genuinely fast. And then in the race, we had some really big cooling issues that caught us by surprise. And we know it was at least a 15-second loss just in the battery and the power. And probably more after you consider the effect it had on the tyres. and just an extra couple of seconds in stint one when I had Checo behind me would have been pretty handy. So I think we’d have been in the fight for P2, for the podium, with Checo and Carlos, but definitely we didn’t show our true potential.
Q: Were those cooling issues a simple miscalculation or something that actually needs a fix?
GR: I think it was definitely a miscalculation. It would have been quite straightforward to just open the bodywork very slightly and make things much easier. But we don’t know how we fell into that place… Sorry, I was just distracted by Charles walking in there. I’ve lost my lost my groove now! No, we don’t really understand why, because we didn’t change anything from testing, in FP2 as well, and then suddenly it caught us out on Saturday. So I’m sure it’ll be better this weekend.
Q: Are you worried about it for this weekend?
GR: We need to get on top of it, and we’ve got some tests tomorrow to try and understand further what happened.
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PRESS CONFERENCE
Q: (Nelson Valkenburg – Viaplay) For George. The F1 media, everybody’s obsessed with the possibility, obviously, of Max going to Mercedes. How would you feel if a driver who had some choice words for you a year ago would join the team?
GR: Yeah, I think, as I said last week in Bahrain, this is my third season now alongside Lewis, the greatest driver of all time, and I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job alongside him. So whoever were to line up alongside me next year or the years to come, I welcome anybody, welcome the challenge. You always want to go against the best, but ultimately for me, I’m just focused on myself. I believe in myself. I believe I can beat anybody on the grid. And, you know, you’ve just got to have that mentality. So, as I said, having Lewis as my benchmark for the last couple of years has been a pretty good benchmark for sure.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1) But what chance, George? What chance of Max Verstappen really going to Mercedes? From the inside, could you see it happening? Because it would be probably the biggest story since your current team-mate signed for Ferrari.
GR: I think any team wants to have the best driver line-up possible. And right now, Max is the best driver on the grid. So if any team had a chance to sign Max, they would 100% be taking it. So I think the question is more on the other side, on his side and Red Bull’s side. Obviously so much going on there. We don’t know what truly is going on behind closed doors and ultimately it’s none of our business right now. Yeah, I guess we’ll be excited.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports F1). You all did 57 laps. Everyone did 57 laps, apart from those that were lapped on Saturday in Bahrain. You all went into the race optimistic, I’m sure, because it was the first race of the season. How was your optimism levels at the chequered flag? That’s to all of you.
GR: I think after three days of testing, everybody knows Bahrain pretty well. It all panned out as we probably expected. But obviously, we all hope that the field tightens up a little bit right at the front. But the fight behind Max, I think, is really, really tight. And it’s going to be quite exciting between ourselves, Ferrari, Aston and McLaren.
Q: (Diego Mejia – Fox Sports Mexico) Both Charles and George, about the issues you had with the cooling, with the brakes and the power unit, is that a worry here? Was it probably the changing conditions in Bahrain that caused for that, that we had probably the lowest temperature before the race weekend started and then it was increasing over the race weekend?
GR: Yeah, similar to Charles, it was definitely a bit of an odd one for us, but we’re confident we’re on top of it and won’t face the same issue this weekend.
Q: (Samarth Kanal – The Race) A question for all five of you or anyone who wants to answer it. The FIA is apparently considering doing away with five-second track limit penalties, replacing them with 10-second penalties. How do you feel about that?
GR: Yeah, as Charles said, I think it’s difficult to really comprehend from a television how difficult it is from within the car. You’re sat so low, you only see the top 15 centimetres of your tyres and the cars are running, you know, 70 millimetres from the ground or whatever they are, even less at the end of a straight so we need a kerb that we can feel and ultimately some tracks we go to there are no track limit issues whatsoever. it’s only a handful of circuits that we see a lot of track limits issues. So we just need to find a way to solve it.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) Question to George, please. I think it was this time last week you were talking about the new Mercedes bouncing. I wonder if you could just describe what that feels like to you inside the car. Is it the same or a different sensation to what you talked about a lot in 2022? And did it get any better over the Bahrain race weekend?
GR: I think all of the teams have got a pretty good handle on the bouncing now, and we can probably expose the limitation or shy away from it. But as we know, with the ground effects cars, you want to get the car as low as possible to the ground and as stiff as possible, which has compromises. So the feeling pretty much is very similar to what you felt over the last two years, but just to a much lesser extent. But as I said, I think for all of the teams, you’ll see some former bounce net points throughout this year.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) George, a question for you. There was a BBC Sport report in the last few days saying that the FIA president is being investigated over an alleged interference with the race result here last year. You were the driver that initially benefited from Fernando’s penalty moving up to third before going back down to fourth. I know this does not involve Mercedes directly, but from a sporting point of view and for you as a director of the GPDA, how concerned are you by this report?
GR: Yeah, I think we want to see all of the facts and just have total transparency, really. We’re all racing here. We want a fair and level playing field for us to showcase what we can do. I can’t really comment further. We were surprised a year ago when the result got overturned, as the legal team at Mercedes thought they did a great job of, you know, presenting our case and initially winning the case and then losing it thereafter. So, you know, we just want to see transparency and have the opportunity to race on a fair playing field.
Q: (Alex Kalinauckas – Autosport) A question to Charles, George and to Nico, please. There seemed to be a bit of chatter after the race and after the whole weekend in Bahrain that perhaps the dirty air effect is becoming more of a topic again, that following is a little bit harder. I just wondered what was your experience of that in the race and is this going to be a topic for the season?
Charles LECLERC: I’ve heard that. However, on our side, this year is a little bit better compared to last year. So I don’t know if it’s part of the characteristics we have improved compared to last year, which made our car very difficult to drive. But this year, it’s quite a bit better for us to follow. But yeah, it might not be the same for George.
GR: I wasn’t following anyone, unfortunately.
CL: You followed me!
GR: Did I?
CL: Yes!
GR: Yeah, it was quite good on the first lap. No, I think there are some thoughts of this. I wouldn’t say it’s getting easier. It’s either staying the same or getting slightly worse. But I think it’s only natural as we’re all moving further and further away from the initial regulation.
Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) George, I think just to direct Nelson’s question from earlier to you, how do you feel currently about where F1 is at with all of the off-track drama going on? It does feel like there’s a big cloud over the sport with everything going on off-track at the moment.
GR: Yeah, I think… Well, two things. I feel that the racing needs to be at the forefront of everything. And this is what we all love and what we’re here to fight for. And it’s a shame when that isn’t the forefront of the media attention. But equally, Formula 1 is at the forefront of technology. I think from an entertainment standpoint, I think we’ve been really pushing the boundaries in the last few years. And we do need to create an environment that is inclusive for everybody. We’re seeing the demographic change over the past couple of years, and it does need to be inclusive. So unfortunately, you need to have these hard conversations and questions. And going back to the earlier point, you want to see transparency within all of these reports, because ultimately, until we see the facts, we can’t really comment. But yeah.
Q: I’ve got a question for all of you, regarding F1 Academy. The season kicks off here in Saudi. It’s going to race alongside Formula 1 seven times this year. All of your teams are represented in the series. So Charles, we can just start with you. How important do you feel F1 Academy is?
GR: Yeah, following on from what Charles said, really, I think it’s really great that Formula 1 are given the chance for these women to showcase their talents. And with all of the Formula 1 teams backing and supporting them, extra visibility racing on Formula 1 race weekends, I think it’s just the beginning of a lot of great things to come.
Source: FIA.com
