“Like Mercedes starting a marathon ten minutes late,” agrees Russell
Lewis Hamilton’s new partner recognizes that the German team fell behind the competition at the start of the season.
The podium snatched by Lewis Hamilton from Sakhir last Sunday allowed Mercedes to limit the damage. Clearly behind a competition having better tamed the new regulations during the off-season, the German team benefited from the mechanical setbacks of Mercedes to score precious points, almost unexpected. « It’s a bit like starting a marathon ten minutes late. We have to run faster than the others and maybe we will still end up behind them“, recognizes George Russell, questioned by theAFP.
Fourth to Sakhir for his first race “officialAs a Mercedes driver (he had already replaced Hamilton in 2020, again in Bahrain), Russell is aware that Ferrari and Red Bull have taken a technological lead. « I think this season is going to be a long period of learning and development for all the teams, however tempers the Briton. And I hope that we will improve more than the others. If we get there, we will fight for victory over time.»
Regarding his collaboration with Lewis Hamilton, Russell assures that the two men work « Very good together« . « We both understood that the fight is with the others, not between us. (…) You have to focus on yourself because F1 is an individual sport, whether your teammate is the best in the world or not. Each driver is different, each car is different, we have to find what suits us best. (…) I think I’m really stronger mentally this year, thanks to the experience I have accumulated over two seasons. I am also a more complete pilot, with a different approach. I don’t care too much about what Lewis does, I just try to get the most out of myself, while looking at what he does, his data, to get the big picture context, which sometimes triggers discussions with the engineers. I was already doing this at Williams« .
