George Russell claims Mercedes made more gains with its troubled W14 car between the grands prix in Saudi Arabia and Australia than it did throughout the winter break.
Following a hugely underwhelming 2022 campaign that yielded only a solitary win – courtesy of Russell leading a 1-2 in Brazil – Mercedes had been aiming to immediately rebound back into title contention this year.
However, a dismal opening weekend in Bahrain provided a rude awakening and forced team boss Toto Wolff to admit it needs to abandon its current car concept.
But after a slightly improved showing in Jeddah, Russell stated ahead of the Australian Grand Prix that the German teams made significant progress since it accepted its design philosophy was flawed.
“Yeah, I mean, we’re working really hard at the moment with these changes,” he said. “I won’t give too much away. And we need to make sure they work as expected.
“But as we’ve said a number of times, we’re probably finding more gains in the past two or three weeks than we found over the whole winter by clearly developing in the wrong window.
“So yeah, it’s definitely heading in the right direction.”
Mercedes has a considerable upgrade package that it plans to introduce for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola in May.
Russell, however, has underlined that expectations surrounding the potential of the updates should be managed to avoid a repeat of the scenario that emerged after pre-season testing.
“I think it’s a case of managing expectations, and just focusing on yourself and that development,” the British driver stated.
“We all believed over the winter what we were doing was correct because it was an evolution of what we did throughout last year.
“And we all saw the improvements we made as a team throughout last year to win a race at the end of the year and be fighting at the front.
“Yeah, it caught us by surprise to see the lack of performance when we hit the track in Bahrain and that’s why we were quick to change our approach.
“I think already on the Saturday night of the Bahrain Grand Prix, we were trying different things, going in a different direction with the development because we recognised we’d maybe gone too far.
He added: “So I’m not going to sit here and say we’re incredibly optimistic.”
“All I will say is we are making improvements and that should translate into lap time.
“But we recognise that Red Bull are over a second down the road at the moment.”
Mercedes’ unpredictable 2023 car fared better on the smoother surface of the Albert Park Circuit last weekend to provide Russell and team-mate Lewis Hamilton with the machinery to qualify second and third respectively.
Strong starts for the British duo saw them occupy the top two positions during the early stages of the race until the dominant speed of the Red Bull proved too much for the W14 to resist.
Although Russell subsequently retired with an engine failure, Hamilton trailed Max Verstappen home in second to encouragingly deliver Mercedes’ first podium of the year.
While both Hamilton and Russell have acknowledged the deficit to Red Bull remains ominously large in race trim, Mercedes’ positive Australia outing has provided renewed confidence that it will erode the gap as the season progresses.
The German manufacturer currently sits third in the Constructors’ Championship, only nine points behind the resurgent Aston Martin outfit.
However, Mercedes is a comfortable 30 points clear of Ferrari after a nightmare weekend for the Italian side that ended pointless.
