George Russell has warned Mercedes could face a wait of "five months" to fight for F1 race wins "on merit".
"On merit, I totally stand by what Lewis said. "We are continuously trying things but we don't have a silver bullet at the moment that we think is absolutely going to clear our problems but equally, we don't know," said Russell. "Fighting for victories and winning on merit are two different things and I think we saw last year that Lewis and Mercedes won the race but they qualified second, four-tenths behind Red Bull and Max," explained Russell, who starts from ninth, with Hamilton fifth.
Rising F1 star George Russell earned a lucrative contract by charming Mercedes boss Toto Wolff with a detailed and ambitious PowerPoint presentation back in ...
And when he put pen to paper, Russell made good on a promise he had made to Mercedes boss Toto Wolff way back in 2014. When Russell takes to the grid in his Mercedes car in Bahrain this weekend he will do so on familiar ground. In this presentation, he listed every reason why he could be a successful Mercedes driver in the future. Russell qualified second, recorded the fastest lap and looked odds-on to claim a staggering debut win before a pit-stop error allowed Sergio Perez past. “He also looked a little more like an accountant than a racing driver. Russell saw his £1million yearly salary increase to £5m when he signed his Mercedes contract in September, according to The Times.
George Russell attempted a different tyre warm-up procedure in Q3 in a bid to improve his lap time, but the ploy was unsuccessful.
I went one second slower than I did in Q2 and I was expecting to go a couple of seconds faster. "It’s difficult because we’re so focused on solving the over-arching issue of a car that is difficult to nail down on the details and fine-tune the thing. "We’re doing everything we can to try get the car back up front fighting the Ferraris and the Red Bulls. Not ideal but the race day is tomorrow."
George Russell admits Mercedes' deficit to its rivals may grow in the Bahrain GP as they continued to struggle with porpoising.
“We’re doing absolutely everything we can at the moment to solve these issues. “This is what it’s about at the moment, we know we want to be fighting for victories and we need to try everything we can to get there.” “I feel like we’re going one step forward then two steps back.
George Russell Embraces Mercedes Formula 1 Team Free of Pressure: The British driver speaks to HYPEBEAST about his transition to the sport's most elite ...
We’re here to win the championship at the end of the season, and be the fastest team and fastest driver on average across all 23 races, not just here in Bahrain, so that’s the goal. You’ve got to follow a car closely to be able to overtake, but you also need that slipstream down the straights to propel you past the car, so let’s see how this pans out. We’ve got very similar views on how the car needs to improve and how we can work better as a group, and I think it’s brilliant that we’re on the same page. It’s brilliant to be working with Toto and seeing on a daily basis how he operates and seeing how this team is what it is today. There was never an issue previously, but now there is, and that is going to be a gamechanger whether you’re able to get on top of it or not. We did top the time sheets but we don’t believe we were the fastest in Barcelona. We obviously had quite a different package here in Bahrain which is probably more of our foundation for the season ahead and we’ll have to see how it plays out, but there seems to be some very competitive teams and drivers out there. Toto Wolff played a major role in you being in the Silver Arrows, and your relationship with him goes back to when you were 15. There’s been cases where Mercedes have prioritized one over the other but it’s only when it’s clear that one is in a favorable position to win the championship. We’re both obviously fierce competitors but we’re at very different stages of our career and we recognize we need to work together if we want to improve as a team, because this year is quite different from all the previous ones in the sense that we have such a big regulation change. You’ll now be racing alongside a seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure coming from the team, and the media in general, for you to perform well. I’ll work on myself, work with my group of engineers and try to understand how I can improve, to go faster, and not worry too much about anyone else. You really understand why this team has been at the top of the sport and why they’ve been so competitive, winning so many championships over these past eight seasons.
The 2022 Mercedes car and engine have not impressed so far this season. Granted, it's only the first race and there are sure to be a lot of improvements to ...
Their engine needs a lot of work, but we still have the whole season to come - a lot can change. Mercedes has a long way to go this season, and they seem to be aware of this. Red Bull does have an unreliable engine, we now know, but it is still significantly more powerful that the engine that Mercedes is driving this year. Before the race, Hamilton had himself said that the cars ahead of Mercedes (Ferrari and Red Bull) were in "another league." Again, this is largely thanks to both Red Bulls not finishing the race. They are relieved to have gotten a podium finish, which is owed to both Red Bulls being unable to finish the race.
Toto Wolff says Mercedes realised the issues with its 2022 F1 car “much too late” because of the focus on a major upgrade at the Bahrain pre-season.
We’re a little bit upbeat about where we’ve been able to consolidate ourselves in qualifying and if you’d have told me that last year, I’d have said that’s simply not satisfactory but where we are today, that’s the harsh reality. “It took a while to understand them, now we’re in the process of dialling them out. "We’re third on the road.