George Russell confirmed Mercedes’ improved race performance after bringing significant updates to the car back in Monaco.
Photo credit: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
After qualifying a disappointing twelfth, he managed to move up to third behind winner Max Verstappen and eight seconds behind teammate Lewis Hamilton. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz fell to fifth place due to Russell and Hamilton’s improved tyre management, which allowed them to stay off the hard rubber on their two-stopper.
Russell claimed that Mercedes’ two podium finishes demonstrate that the Brackley team is finally on the right track after making significant changes in Monaco, which were then further utilized at the more conventional Barcelona circuit.
When asked about the teams’ result, he said: “I’m a little bit surprised, for sure.
“Kudos to the team for giving me a really great car today. A strong race for us as well, from P12 coming all the way to P3.
“A sign of things to come hopefully for us as a team.”
When asked about his expectations ahead of today’s race, he said: “I think after yesterday, we knew it’s gonna be a challenge but woke up with a bit more positivity, and I thought we could definitely move forward, probably fight for P5, P6. I thought P3 would be a little bit out of reach, but the car was really, really great today.
“The team did a really great job today with the strategy, and it was a really satisfying race making some good moves on the people around me.”
Mercedes now leads its customer team by 18 points to claim second place in the constructors’ standings after outscoring a struggling Aston Martin by 19 points in Barcelona.
When talking about the jump that the team has made, he said: “Huge thanks for the whole team for bringing these updates forward, but equally, we’re not gonna get carried away after this one race because we know it might be slightly different in the future races, and I think generally Aston and Ferrari were a little bit more off the pace than normal.”
He was asked also about the improvement in drivability that the W14 showed. The young Brit also mentioned the possibility of cooler temperatures helping the team out on race day.
“Today was feeling really strong, but we’ve got more improvements to be made; a little bit cooler today which may have played into our favour, we know our race pace is good, but certainly, we need to make a big step forward to catch up the Red Bulls and Max, you know we’re not solely satisfied with P2 and P3, we ought to take a step forward, you know we’ve got our sights set right at the very top.
“We go to many different circuits, and the car naturally feels really, really strong at a lot of these new circuits with the new tarmac, and when you go to a track like here or Bahrain, you know there’s a lot of tyre deg, today it probably felt the best it’s ever felt around Barcelona because of the cooler conditions but definitely this season probably the best it’s felt, the most together it’s felt.”
Russell praised the team as a whole, but he knows they must start next season much stronger to launch a proper challenge.
“Lewis and the team have done a really, really great job; the work that Mick and the simulator team are doing overnight; they were there till well past midnight to help us with the setup and put it in a good window for the race today.
“We are making strides in the right direction. We just need to make sure, and especially in the next year, that we hit the ground running because I think we as a team probably develop faster than anybody else.”
