© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
George Russell attended the 2024 Dutch Grand Prix Thursday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: George, let’s start with you. We have another Swifty in our midst, but tell us about the Summer Break Festival. How was it?
George RUSSELL: Yeah, the summer break was great. I think it was so needed for everyone. I think we’re kind of also lucky in this sport that we’ve got this mandated break. Otherwise, I think people struggle to switch off. Didn’t think too much about racing. And then like Sunday night last week, I was struggling to sleep thinking about tyre pressures and rear springs and downforce levels and stuff. So it’s funny how the brain shifts.
Q: Well, you went into the break on the back of that disqualification at Spa. Sorry to bring back a bad memory, but are you now confident the team understands why that happened and why it won’t happen again?
GR: Yeah, absolutely. I think it was clearly we didn’t do a good enough job, but it was just a number of factors all coming together where we sort of exceeded our expectation of how much weight we would lose, including myself. You know, I lost a bit more weight during the race than we thought. The tyres lost a lot more than we expected. The plank was wearing more than we thought as well. And it’s just sort of these three or four factors all coming together that just pushed us over the edge.
Q: Ironically, was that one of your best races in Formula 1 to date?
GR: Yeah, without doubt. It was such an amazing feeling, just being out there, seeing this opportunity come into life. And Spa is such a unique circuit. They’ve got these big, long straights. There’s a few TV screens down there. And I was sort of looking at the leaderboard and the gap to Lewis, and I think Charles was behind Lewis at the time, and sort of working out, like, you know, they’re closing in six or seven tenths a lap, I’ve got 15, 16 laps to go and I’m 12 seconds or so ahead. I think I’ll be able to keep this up. And if they’re going to catch me, it’s going to be right towards the end. And yeah, that was such, you know, nobody can take that feeling away from me from crossing the line, celebrating with my team, standing on the podium. I think if I was in a championship fight this year, it would have been a much bigger blow to us, those 25 points. But, you know, this season, unfortunately, we’re not quite there.
Q: Let’s talk about these last 10 races. I mean, Mercedes goes into them having scored five podiums in the last six races, including three wins. How high are you setting your aims?
GR: I mean, we’ve got to be setting our sights really high, to be honest, because we are improving drastically in these last couple of races. I do think these last three wins in the last four races probably doesn’t perfectly reflect the performance. I think McLaren have been performing really strong. They were probably slightly more competitive than us in Spa last week, last race, sorry. And, you know, Red Bull are a little bit up and down at the moment, but you can be sure they’ll be competitive too. But it reminds me a little bit of my junior days in F3, F2, knowing that if you do a great job, there’s a victory on the cars. And if you don’t, you’ll probably be outside the top five.
Q: Well, you’re 79 points behind Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship. Can you beat them?
GR: I think the performances we’ve been showing recently have been really, really strong. But we’re not too focused on those points right now. We’re just taking it race by race, just trying to understand the car further and try and get some more victories under our belt.
Q: There’s a new chief race engineer at Mercedes. Peter Bonnington has been promoted. Can we get your reaction to the news and how Bono’s promotion will help you?
GR: Yeah, I mean, Bono’s been obviously an integral part of the team’s success for so, so many years, and even before the Mercedes days, back at Brawn as well. And, you know, it’s great news that he’s staying on with us next year. Obviously, there’s a lot of rumours and speculation about if he would go with Lewis, but I think there’s only a real benefit to me having that promotion for Bono. It’s almost having an extra set of eyes overlooking the work we’re doing and I think he’s only going to strengthen our squad even further.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (David Croft, Sky Sports F1) George, I think Logan’s cap isn’t as good as the pink cowboy cap hat you were wearing at Wembley, to be fair. But I don’t want to talk Taylor Swift. I want to talk the last 10 races of the season. I know you touched on it a bit, but what can Mercedes do in the position that you’re in? How good is your car now compared to McLaren, compared to Red Bull? And have you thought about the Constructors’ Championship as a team at Brackley?
GR: Well, for sure. there are lots of people back at base looking at the championship because this is what we’re fighting towards, but it’s no secret whatsoever that we want to fight for championships. And to get there, we just need to keep on evolving this car, keep on improving, keep on working hard. And I think with the regulation going into next year for all of the teams, it’s just going to be an evolution of what we see this year. So, you know, we want to continue that improvement. I think right now, I think McLaren have probably still got the best car on the grid. They seem consistently up there every track they go to. The swings in performance from Red Bull are quite surprising to all of us, I think. I don’t think anybody would have anticipated that after the first four races, myself included. And I think we’re optimistic that we can have some more strong performances. I’m full of excitement and motivation to try and get some more wins under our belt, but… You know, for me, the priority is making sure we have the best car possible by the end of the season and going into next year to really mount a challenge.
Q: (Tamira Goschier – Sky Sports, Germany) I work as a kids reporter for Sky Germany and I have a question for George. Who should play you in a movie?
GR: Should play me in a movie? Oh, my goodness. You really put me on the spot there. Who do you think should play me? I need some inspiration. People say I’ve looked a bit like Cillian Murphy. I don’t quite see the correlation. I don’t know if it’s the hair, maybe.
Q: In what role? Peaky Blinders?
GR: Peaky Blinders. Yeah, I do love Peaky Blinders. So, yeah, I say Cillian Murphy.
Q: (Felix Gerner – RTL) George, what do you think? Who has the best chances this year to beat Max in terms of the championship?
GR: Yeah, I think at the moment there’s only one driver. It’s probably Lando who can beat Max in the championship. They… They obviously had such a incredible start to the season. But who knows, with the number of races we have, Lewis and I were talking this morning about when he first started, I think there were 17 races in the season. So there would have only been three more to go from this point in, and the season would have basically been over already. So there’s still lots of opportunity. But personally, I don’t see anybody catching up with Max and Rebel in normal circumstances. They have an exceptional lead. It’s just we’ve been used to crazy dominance in the last two years. Thank you, George.
Q: (Mara Sangiorgio – Sky Sport Italy) George, are you ready to welcome near you Kimi in 2025? Do you think it will be a big change for you two personally?
GR: Kimi Raikkonen? Sorry?
Q: (Mara Sangiorgio – Sky Sport Italy) Kimi Antonelli, you know.
GR: He’s the F2 driver, right!? No, I think whoever’s going to be my teammate next year, of course, we’ll welcome them. And excited for the challenge together. Kimi’s an exceptional driver, such an amazing track record. in his junior series, always destined to be a Formula 1 driver. And if it were to be him, I think it sort of shows the strength also of the Mercedes junior program and reminds me a bit of my journey, starting off as a young kid, walking through the doors in Formula 3 and climbing the ladder. And it would be a great story for the team, but who knows?
Q: George, how much contact have you had with Kimi Antonelli?
GR: Yeah, I mean, I see him every time he’s racing F2. We always keep a close eye on how he’s getting on, watching all of the races. We did a test together in Silverstone a couple of months ago, so that was a great opportunity for him to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car. He was exceptionally fast, so I’m sure if he were to get a drive in Formula 1, I’m sure he’d do a great job.
Q: (Roldan Rodriguez – DAZN, Spain) From Spain, a question to George. You have done a very good first part of the season, extremely fast, but good drivers always try to improve themselves, I mean, be better. I would like to know you as a driver, where are you trying to improve yourself to be even faster?
GR: Yeah, I think qualifying this year has definitely been a real strength of mine. I feel that I’ve been driving faster than ever. And I think a lot of that’s down to… been in a really great place psychologically. I’ve worked a lot in making sure, you know, when I arrive into Q3, you know, how to deal with all of that pressure when you’re going to do a lap. And I think that’s been great. I still think I want to improve a little bit with, well, I was going to say time management, but obviously last race was pretty good, but time management is something, having Lewis as my teammate is I’ve learned, you know, a huge amount on, and I think he was always, you know, the very best in, in race pace and getting the most out of, out of that. So just very small details to, to make the difference.
Q: (Moritz Steidl – Servus TV) A question to George. Toto always mentions that there is no finger-pointing culture at Mercedes. What happened at Spa is something the driver is not in charge of. How did you deal with that, and how did you discuss this internally? Like, how did you react when they told you, ‘OK, you will lose the victory’?
GR: Yeah, I think… I’d been pushing the team for a long time to keep pushing the boundaries. If you take margin in everything you do, you’d never be disqualified. You’d never make a mistake while driving. You’d never spin off. But you’d never know what the true potential is. And of course, you know, it’s very frustrating that the one time in three years we’ve been just under the weight limit was the race we won. But you know, there’s zero hard feelings because we’re in this together and it will make us stronger for the future. And that race, I lost 25 points. But in my mind, that is still a win. I’ve kept my helmet, and it’s going to be going on my bedside table with my other two victories. And as I said, those celebrations I had with the team in that moment straight after were some of the best feelings of my career. So I’ll only take positives from what happened.
Q: George, you want them, you want the team to push the margins, but are you asking for them to give it a little bit more margin this weekend?
GR: I don’t think you need to take more margin. I think, you know, the processes weren’t quite in place to cover all the different scenarios. You know, I knew before the race I was a little bit light, but it was too late to make a substantial change without eating a steak or something, which was probably not the best pre-race routine. But there are things that now with the benefit of hindsight, we can do better and we will be doing better moving forward. And as always, you need to make a mistake first until you recognise there’s a problem.
Q: (Carlo Platella – FormulaPassion.it) Question for George about the new floor that you tested on Friday in Spa. What was your feedback and are you going to use it again here?
GR: Yeah, I’ll be using it tomorrow morning. Lewis will be on the floor from Spa, but we see no issues with that. I think we were uncompetitive on Friday in Spa for different reasons. And this is the challenge when you bring upgrades to the car. There’s thousands of reasons why you may be competitive or you may be uncompetitive. This was one factor, but it wasn’t the factor of the lack of performance on Friday. So 99% will be proceeding with the new updates on both cars this weekend.
Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) George, Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari got wins, and everybody expected a Red Bull dominant season. Did this happen because the three teams got a bit improved, the performance with upgrades, or maybe Red Bull lost some performance and stayed in the same level?
GR: I think we have… I think definitely ourselves and McLaren have moved forward. And when you look at the gap to the teams lower down the order, that is definitely very clear. So I don’t necessarily think Red Bull, I think they’ve made a small step backwards with the upgrade they brought. But I think the upgrade we have been bringing to the car was a bigger step forward than we’ve seen on any other team. So let’s see what the next upgrades bring, and hopefully it’s more of the same.
Q: (Stijn Keuris – Panorama) Also a question for George. Do you think that Mercedes’ past experience of winning has helped the team getting back to the front of the grid and maybe also taking most of the opportunities that have been given that other teams may have let slip?
GR: Yeah, without doubt. Mercedes have a team filled with winners, and I think James Allison has said it before, you don’t just forget how to build a fast race car. You encounter problems, you may make a mistake in trying to rectify that, but… the team at Mercedes have not just forgotten how to win races and you know the same as, you know, Lewis has won so many races in in Formula 1, won races in in junior categories. You don’t forget how to win when you have that opportunity. That was never ever in doubt and why I personally have always kept the faith that we will return to the top of the grid.
Q: (Ben Hunt – Autosport) George, question for you, please. Just based on your observations of Lewis’s working relationship with Bono, I just wondered, what’s the strength of that relationship, and how difficult is it going to be for Lewis to replicate that relationship they have with someone else new at Ferrari?
GR: Yeah, I think relationships take time to build and trust takes time to, and respect takes time to earn as well. So, you know, with any change of, job as such or professional, whatever it may be, when you’re working with new co-workers, it’s going to be just take time to learn. So I don’t really have much more to say than that, really. They’re obviously extremely close for everything they’ve gone through.
Source: FIA.com
