George Russell is adamant, Mercedes “has forgotten” how to build a winning car, they just took a “bad path” with the 2022 W13.
The reigning eight-time constructors’ champion struggled with his W13 in a bad mood last season, bouncing from track to track.
With technical director Andrew Shovlin admitting it was “borderline dangerous” at some circuits, Mercedes first had to solve the marsouinage before it could expand the car.
This made the first part of the season difficult, the Brackley side was the team that took the maximum step forward in the current part of the championship. Shovlin thanked the pilots for this and said the two “work together, they are satisfied with the percentage of the workload. “
Russell believes he is “very privileged” to have Hamilton’s caliber as a teammate.
He told BBC Radio Norfolk: “It takes a while every time you sign up for a new team, regardless of your teammate, to have compatibility and earn that recognition as true within the total organisation.
“It’s been smart for me, to be teammates with him.
“He’s the greatest of all time, so I’m in a very privileged position to travel with him and also receive information from him. “
Last season, Russell was only the third teammate in Hamilton’s 16 years on the Formula 1 grid to beat the seven-time world champion overall.
Russell P4, 35 numbers ahead of Hamilton, who finished sixth on paper. The 24-year-old is also the only one of the two to win a race, P1 at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
“We were fighting for P4, P5, P6 and we don’t need to be in that position, so I won’t leave with great pride because I finished fourth in the championship,” Russell said.
“I’m here to win.
I’m going to try to improve my handling, which I do on and off the track, and hopefully we have the car under us to fight for the championship. “
The Briton subsidized Toto Wolff’s confidence that Mercedes has forgotten how to design a winning car.
Speaking at the end of the season, the motorsport boss told the Beyond The Grid podcast: “We don’t take a stupid pill, winning the constructors’ championship last December and then being in nothingness in March is very easy. We were given the wrong concept.
While the first idea was the zero-pod that created Mercedes’ headaches, it was later speculated that their floor might have been stiffer than that of their rivals, while Wolff says that also in October 2021 they drove the car too close to the floor.
Russell joined his crew boss to recover from Mercedes.
“They haven’t been told how to build a fast race car,” he said.
“Sometimes it takes you a long time to get out of that hole. Now I feel that we have pulled ourselves out of that gap and we are aware of it.
“We are a Red Bull and Ferrari step forward and we have a lot to do to catch up, however we will be in a much more powerful position from the first race. “