After four grand prix weekends this past season, George Russell lay just six points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers’ standings. It’s easy to overlook – given the way the trajectory of the season funnelled into the three-way fight between Verstappen and the two McLaren drivers – the all-round strength of Russell’s year.
Partly that is because Mercedes never quite made the leap to full competitiveness, even in the final year of the second ground-effect era. The W16 was supposed to smooth out the bumps in Mercedes’ balance of performance, keeping its predecessor’s decent high-speed pace but curing a reluctance to turn, especially in slow corners, and a tendency to rarely balance the tyre temperatures on the front and rear axles optimally. It was an improvement, just not quite enough to cut it regularly at the very front.
