© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
George Russell says he’s “definitely not having the fluctuations in confidence and performance on my side of the garage, or in my car, compared to what Lewis is experiencing”.
After qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix in P7, George Russell says Mercedes’ overall performance is not catastrophic.
“We definitely know we’re struggling in the high-speed corners and this is a circuit [where] you see quite a lot of medium and high-speed corners,” the Briton said.
“We know where we need to work on, that’s clear, but in these first three quails of the year we’ve been P3, P3, P7 and in a grid so tight there’s still all to play for behind Red Bull.”
While Russell is pretty optimistic, Lewis Hamilton on the other hand had a lot of issues with his car in qualifying, and he was ultimately eliminated in Q2.
Afterwards, Lewis said the “inconsistency within the car” really “messes with the mind”.
When asked to comment on this, George said he is not experiencing the same fluctuations that Lewis does.
“I’m definitely not having the fluctuations in confidence and performance on my side of the garage, or in my car, compared to what Lewis is experiencing.
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“I’m reasonably happy with how the car is handling. We just don’t have the performance.
“It was a difficult day but we still qualified P7. There’s gonna be a lot of deg tomorrow in the race but still a lot to play for.”
Since the teams did not do any running on Hard tyres, George was asked if this ‘unknown’ could play a factor in the race.
“Absolutely, because every team has kept two sets of Hards. Nobody’s done a lap on the Hards yet, and everyone’s gonna be racing at least one set tomorrow. That makes it relatively exciting.
“We saw Jeddah last week that C2 has been way too resilient for a circuit of this nature. So let’s see what the hard tyre this year has to offer. Definitely expecting a bit more excitement.
“It’s been the norm of the fluctuations between teams especially racing the C5 tyre, it’s really unpredictable.
“We saw in Mexico last year the times changing between teams and it’s tight out there between the four teams bar Red Bull,” Russell concluded.
