George Russell believes Mercedes have “overcompensated” with their car design for 2024 while trying to fix the weaknesses of last year’s car.
He and team mate Lewis Hamilton qualified seventh and eighth respectively for Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix after neither scored points in Saturday’s sprint race.Mercedes changed their core aerodynamic concept for 2024 with their W15 chassis after two frustrating seasons where the team only took a single grand prix victory. However, Russell admits that the team may have gone too far in aiming to address some of the weaknesses of their previous ground effect cars.
“The fact is, the stopwatch doesn’t lie,” Russell told Sky after qualifying.
“We know that probably some of the changes we have made since end of last year perhaps overcompensated with some of the development items we did. We have limitations with the car now which are totally different limitations to what we had this time 12 months ago.
“We did so much work to solve the problems, we’ve kind of gone too far in that direction. We know we need to improve and we need to improve quickly.”
Asked if Mercedes have the ability to make those improvements over the rest of the season, Russell said “we definitely know how to.”
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“I think when we look at the data, we understand why we’re in the position we are right now,” he continued. “And as I said, last year, when we looked at the data, we understand why we were in that same position.
“I think, unfortunately, we probably overcompensated to solve the problems of last year. We’ve gone from this extreme to that extreme now and we need to sort of rewind and find ourselves in a halfway house.
“But when developments, when new upgrades, take eight weeks to bring to the car – you learn this problem in race one or race two – you can’t just bring an upgrade to the next race. You’ve got to put it in the wind tunnel, you’ve got to design it. Someone’s got to draw it, someone’s going to build it and suddenly you’re halfway through the season.
“So I think that’s why it’s so difficult when you’re on the back foot to just suddenly make that progress. Everybody expects it tomorrow and we want it tomorrow – trust me. But this is the reality of Formula 1.”
Despite qualifying behind both Red Bulls, Ferraris and McLarens, Russell says he has belief that Mercedes could challenge some of their rivals ahead of them in the grand prix.
“I expect to be looking forwards tomorrow,” he said. “Hopefully no pressure from behind.
“But P7 and P8, we have to accept, is where we are at the moment. We are a step behind McLaren and Ferrari – a big step behind Red Bull. I think the result we showed today was the maximum, but I’m confident tomorrow we will make a step forward to them.”
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2024 Miami Grand Prix
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Tristan
5th May 2024, 0:53
This is telling, and I think the crux of Red Bull’s success. Back when Red Bull were working with Renault they were vocal about Renault’s unwillingness to rapidly iterate eroding the relationship. Red Bull had, and I assume still have (especially given their Red Bull technologies article pre-season about how they have worked so hard on their process to build parts quickly) rapid iteration as a pillar of their development philosophy.
This sounds like a completely different “reality of Formula 1” to what Russell explains here and highlights just how far Red Bull is ahead of the competition. It’s not just about whether you have the talent to build a fast car, or about knowing what’s making your car slow, but how quick you can get that on the car and test that, because the changes will then highlight new deficiencies, it’s unavoidable.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
5th May 2024, 4:46
The problem with a lot of ‘French’ companies is they have these people that retire early before leaving the company. Also trying to get a firm like Renault to admit they suck is never going to happen, even when its obvious. They had a good V8, maybe the best in terms of efficiency, but they had the most expensive and least capable Power Unit, in 2014.
Its more of social rot that is holding back guys like Renault, maybe even Honda and Yamaha in MotoGP, but maybe finances are more a factor for Yamaha and its unwillingness to address its motor/tooling. As ‘cool’ and ‘modern’ as F1 is, there is a lot of corruption, nepotism, etc. Teams like Red Bull, ironically, are just better about keeping it out of the organization, because that will kill team cohesion/effectiveness. Maybe things were getting too comfy for Horner, or maybe its just a lot of drama caused by one driver’s entourage who was creating a toxic environment for the chain of command.
G
5th May 2024, 10:30
I had a full tour of the RBR factory in Milton Keynes including their machine shop, and it was very, very impressive. They pride themselves on doing almost everything in house and outsource very little. I’d say this has a lot to do with their rapid development as they are in full control of everything at once.
I was lucky enough when I went that they were in between races so the pit crew were there practicing pit stops and Max was also there doing PR. I’d love to see a couple of other F1 factories to compare and see if they are as well organised.
mars
5th May 2024, 10:17
@Tristan
Excellent point indeed. Ferrari started the 2022 season in front thanks to the 2021 season, which they focused on new regulations long before Mercedes and RedBull. It just took 4 races for RedBull to get past Ferrari. This is not a new thing if we put aside the years when Mercedes held a huge power advantage against RedBull and other teams. They have always been very quick to respond and develop accordingly, and other teams are still not even close to that organization level.
DaveW (@dmw)
5th May 2024, 3:43
This weekend seems like the end of Mercedes’ Ausredenpolitik. Wolff is quiet now and not hyping up the next upgrades and swearing they know how to fix the car this time. They are out of ideas. It’s a bit sad as now it really feels low the end of their era. The sense or hope they will spring back to their feet and take on RBR is really gone now.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
5th May 2024, 4:48
less bargaining is a good thing, and they can only improve once they accept the truth.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
5th May 2024, 4:38
why they haven’t picked up on the quality of the tires being their biggest problem is kind of mind scratching.
As someone who deals with software/sensors/telemetry etc, there should be enough data points as well as derivative data points which can quantify/qualify the condition of the tires, the degree to which these data points about the tires change is of most interest.
Its clear Lewis doesn’t get that the tires were destroying themselves after 6 (purple sector 1) turns or so, its also clear that the people reading the data should have a clue and be feeding back to the performance/race engineers as well as the driver more accurately.
While data helps to identify trouble areas/trends, its not the end all be all, but there’s clearly something lacking at Mercedes when it comes to ‘judging’ the tires, because they are doing a VERY HORRIBLE job at it.
Kribana (@krichelle)
5th May 2024, 4:49
At this point, Toto needs to start taking responsibility for this situation. You don’t go from being world champions for 8 straight years to being in the midfield. They can’t just expect Hamilton and Russell to work hard when driving the car every weekend. This has been for 2 years, and it’s not an engine power issue. They have driveability issues. The onboards of Hamilton and Russell show that they are wrestling and trying to balance the car in the corners. They need to make the car work with the tyres. They should already know this, your car can be fast but if it does not work the tyres, you will not extract the laptime. There is laptime in their car but they need to unlock it.
Dex
5th May 2024, 10:38
Wolff lost the engine advantage, nothing he can do about it now, as he lucked into it in the first place. RB had better cars even in the years of Merc dominance, but with Renault inside…
As engine difference reduced gradually, so did the overall advantage that team had.
Sure, they still made great cars and had innovative ideas too, but they didn’t have to chase anyone.
The only positive for them that RB had lost their own genius, but will that be enough? First they need to beat Ferrari, McLaren and AM.
It will be interesting to see who will, if anyone, dominate the engine market in 2026. That could change it all. But it’s unlikely that anyone could make huge gains like that again, with simpler engines and now much older and better explored electric components. At least that is my assumption, that engine won’t give extra 1.5s a lap to any team (Merc had over a sec with tuned down engines to hide the advantage to prevent early rule changes).
As for Totto, he lost many important people too, let’s not forget. It’s not the same team. And as we can see, he doesn’t really perform under pressure. But I’d like him to stay, it’ll be interesting to see how he can deal with a new challenge. So far not so good…
Applebook
5th May 2024, 6:00
Well, the positive is that you’re destroying your teammate, so no one will blame you for the poor car performance. All that you can be reasonably expected to do in motorsport is to beat your teammate, and George has easily done that. His problems last year were his own making. This season, he’s cleaned up his driving and just getting the most out of a dud.
Sumedh
5th May 2024, 6:05
Heads need to roll at Mercedes now.
When 2 of your competitors with same engine are ahead of you, you are clearly doing something wrong and your current people are unable to figure out why.
If Newey goes to Williams, it might even happen that the works team is slowest of all.
Kudos to Merc to for being honest and forthright about their issues. But still, heads should roll
Armchair Expert (@armchairexpert)
5th May 2024, 6:21
Maybe they shouldn’t have listened to Hamilton, who bailed on them at the very first opportunity even before season started?
Pete
5th May 2024, 10:44
I think part of the problem Mercedes have is instead of accepting where they are and trying to improve from there, they keep throwing everything out and trying to find a silver bullet that makes them the quickest.
They need to accept they are 4th and aim for 3rd. Then aim for 2nd and so on. The past 2 years they improved their car, we’re moving up the field and then said “We’ve got a totally new design. This will be the one to get us winning again” and they move backwards. Just as they get on top of it, they’ll bring something new again.
It’s like they think that because they are Mercedes, they should win automatically so if that’s not happening, something is majorly wrong with the car.