© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
George Russell says Mercedes has “some ideas” why in Bahrain and Saudi Arabian free practice sessions the W15 was “genuinely quick” but “the performance went away from us into qualifying”.
Mercedes entered the 2024 season hoping that their newest car would be able to challenge for top positions on the grid.
Unfortunately this did not happen, and in the first two races of the season, the W15 performed possibly even worse than its predecessors.
After pre-season testing, word coming out of Mercedes was that the W15 is a better platform to build upon than its predecessors were, and when George Russell was asked ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, if he still believes that to be true, the Briton said he does.
“Yeah, I think definitely,” George said.
“I think you’ve only got to look at the potential and the performance we showed in FP1 and 2 in the last two races, we were genuinely quick and the performance went away from us into qualifying. We have some ideas why that may have been.
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“I think it’s also important just to remember we’ve only done three days of practice and two races, and I think if you compare that to a football team, if they’ve done three days of training together in the first two games of the season, they’ll still be understanding how to get the most out of each other and maximise the team.
“So that’s sort of where we’re standing right now. And it’s so close up there between the four teams after Red Bull, so it can easily swing.”
George added Mercedes will use Australian Grand Prix practice session to test out some things on the car, but he still believes a good performance is possible.
“I think we’ve gone well here the last two seasons. Obviously we qualified second and third here last year, and we were fighting for a win at one point.
“And we’ve learned so much from the first two races. I think we’re all definitely going out tomorrow to test a lot of things on the car, to get a better handle on how to get the most out of this car.
“I think it’s off the compound of tyres this year, which Ferrari tend to go pretty well in qualifying on the C5 tyre.”
He added that Mercedes should not be written off based on two races, because is previous seasons there were big fluctuations in the teams’ performances throughout the year.
“But I think if you take the Red Bull out of a situation, it’s a really exciting battle right behind.
“But ultimately we’re not here to fight for P2, we want to be fighting for the victory. And we know it’s a mountain to climb, but it swings very, very quickly in this sport.
“And I think just going through our meetings this morning, seeing Aston Martin on the podium, if somebody said that after the first six races last year they’d finish P5 in the championship, you wouldn’t believe it.
“So I think that just goes to show how quick it can change,” Russell concluded.
