Mercedes has quite easily solved the problems the team had during the test days. That tells George Russell in conversation with Motorsport.com. Those problems mainly had to do with the balance of the W14. The Briton states that those problems should now be resolved.
“We had a really good time between the test and the race to analyze what happened during the test days,” says the single Grand Prix winner. “There were a few things going on with the car that we didn’t quite expect. But we managed to solve them quite easily. The car just worked in the wrong work window.’
Russell says that Mercedes drove with a sub-optimal rear wing configuration during the test days. “For this weekend we are using a different rear wing than in the test in Bahrain, just for some correlation work. That was also not an optimal rear wing for Bahrain. So there are definitely positive signs, but I’m not going to sit here and say: we’re going to find that lap time deficit on Red Bull.’
Russell wants to do (even) better than Hamilton
Finally, Russell also hopes to be closer to teammate Lewis Hamilton in terms of race pace in 2023. “Last year was obviously a very challenging car to drive. I was certainly satisfied with my own personal performance. The qualifying pace, we were essentially identical. The race pace is maybe something I can improve on a bit. I probably improved that by the end of the year compared to Lewis. He’s just a beast and he keeps fighting, he keeps going. He never gives up, so he will fight even more than last year. I’m excited to take on that challenge.”
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