George Russell has recently revealed what he believes was the turning moment in his 2023 season. Expectations were high for the 25-year-old coming into this year as he had an outstanding campaign last year when he beat Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton in the championship. However, he has failed to achieve the same heights this season. According to Russell, his race in Melbourne changed things drastically for the worse.
When asked in an interview with Robb Report about what was his biggest challenge this season, Russell replied, “I think starting on the front foot is always very important. And for me, personally, I had quite a setback in Melbourne leading the race. We got unfortunate with a red flag when we were on the perfect strategy. We potentially lost out on a victory“.
Russell briefly led the race in Melbourne before an unfortunate red flag gave his rivals a free pit stop. Since he had stopped earlier in the race, he fell from the lead to seventh place. While the Mercedes star did recover some ground later, he was forced to retire on lap 18 after his car suffered an engine failure.
Since the 25-year-old had such a disappointing finish to what had been a fantastic race weekend for him until that point, he believes the setback on that occasion greatly affected his entire campaign. Moreover, it is not just George Russell who has struggled. The Silver Arrows as a unit have also not performed at their best this season.
Mercedes have been very inconsistent in 2023
After several outstanding weekends in the past few races, Mercedes had a disastrous weekend in Brazil. Lewis Hamilton was extremely slow in Brazil as he only managed to finish eighth in the race after qualifying in fifth.
Meanwhile, George Russell retired after languishing at the back of the field for most of the race due to poor pace. Since Mercedes have been so inconsistent this season, they have a lot of work to do to close down the gap to Red Bull.
The Milton Keynes outfit have been a class apart this season as they have won 19 of the 20 races this season. As for Mercedes, there are worrying signs as they have failed to register a win this year.
