George Russell Claims Lewis Hamilton and His Predicaments Are Likely To Continue in Australia

Time hasn’t been in favor of Mercedes in the last couple of years and it isn’t likely to be improved as well in the coming races, according to George Russell. The Mercedes driver believes that Lewis Hamilton and his struggles are likely to continue in the future, including in Australia.

As per RaceFans, Russell stated that the Melbourne track is going to be a similar story for the Silver Arrows. Similar to their Jeddah outing in mid-March, where they have been the third-best team behind Red Bull and Aston Martin.

The 25-year-old said such because Melbourne’s tarmac is very similar to that of Jeddah. It also has fast and flowing corners. Moreover, Albert Park is also one of the fastest racetracks on the calendar, along with the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

The former Williams driver also emphasized on the qualifications in Jeddah when he said that the teams might be split by only two-tenths. And hence, it’s going to be similar for the Brackley-based team, and unfortunately no further improvements for Hamilton and him.

Why have Mercedes failed in back-to-back seasons?

To start with, the Brackley-based team brought in a radical concept termed “zero sidepod” in their W-13 with the hope to outsmart its competitors. Sadly, the concept backfired as the Silver Arrows failed to be a match to Red Bull’s RB19 or Ferrari’s F1-75 in 2022.

Furthermore, the W-13s suffered from porpoising significantly. Improving this proved to be time-consuming and by the time they were there with the rectifications, it was already too late.

The team to Brackley decided to stick to their radical invention and started off their 2023 season with W14. However, the opening race in Bahrain gave them a reality check and made them realize they are far away from their target and hence are languishing behind the likes of Red Bull, Aston Martin, and sometimes Ferrari.

How are Silver Arrows trying to make a comeback?

After the harsh outings in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the higher-ups of Brackley finally decided to discard the sidepod design. Being the fourth-best team at one point, criticism hit team principal Toto Wolff said that the team went down to a “dead-end street.”

In terms of the changes, the technical chief of the team, Mike Elliott, shared that the team will have their concept change. As per Elliott, the engineers back at Brackley are looking into various aspects to improve the car as the season progresses.

He said the engineers are looking into aerodynamics, looking at the shape of the car, sidepod geometry, floor geometry as well as the simulation in order to check if they have missed a trick.