George Russell believes Mercedes have the potential lap time to challenge the Ferraris and Red Bulls when they finally overcome their issues with this year’s W13.
But Russell warned that wouldn’t come anytime soon after finishing a lowly 11th in today’s second practice session for the Australian Grand Prix, just two spots in front of teammate Lewis Hamilton.
Ahead of what looks set to be a third straight challenging race weekend for the defending constructors’ champions, Russell said: “We do believe there is a solution and we do believe there’s a lot of lap time on the table once we optimise that.
“It’s more optimism and excitement. We’re not here scratching our heads, not understanding why we’re off the pace. We absolutely know why we’re off the pace and we know what we need to work on to improve that.
“And having that knowledge, having that understanding of what the issues are and that we can solve it is quite an exciting place to be because it gives us all something to go ahead.”
Mercedes have made no secret of their issues with porpoising – the car effectively bouncing on the straights and high-speed corners – which is set to be a problem once again in Melbourne.
And in aiming to rectify the issue, Russell warned they had to be methodical in their approach in order to keep within the new budget gap for teams.
“We’re a long way behind Ferrari and Red Bull,” he said. “It’s going to take time and we just have to be disciplined and patient because we are so far behind and because of the cost cap, we can’t afford just to throw things at it and ‘trial and error’ at race weekends.
“We need to trust the process and bring the upgrades when we have total faith and confidence they will do as we expect. And that will be a number of races before we start seeing that.”
Mercedes have not brought any changes of note to their car in Melbourne while Red Bull have an updated front wing aimed at improving aerodynamic performance and Ferrari have altered their diffuser to improve rear downforce on their car.
Round three of this year’s world championship once again looks set to dominated by Red Bull and Ferrari.
The belief is that Max Verstappen will be quickest come tomorrow’s qualifying and the race itself on a heavily modified Albert Park circuit, which ought to play to the strengths of Red Bull’s greater straightline speed.
But Verstappen had to make do with second fastest behind title rival Charles Leclerc in the second practice session in Melbourne earlier today.
The speed gun clocked the Red Bulls as much quicker on the straights but Verstappen got caught behind a Mercedes and then made an error on two of his quickest laps to end up 0.245 seconds behind Leclerc’s best lap.
Despite the suggestion he could dominate the weekend, Verstappen said: “I personally think the Ferrari is a rocket on the straight. We definitely have good top speed but I wouldn’t say we are quicker.”
Leclerc, meanwhile, countered: “Red Bull are very quick in the straight lines and there’s quite a lot of straight lines now. We might struggle a bit more but it’s like this. If we do the perfect weekend there’s an opportunity for us to do very well. I think Imola [in two weekends’ time] is a better track so here it’s about taking as many points as we can and not make any mistakes.”
This weekend’s race marks the first grand prix in Australia since 2019. The 2020 race was set to go ahead but was called off at the last minute with the F1 paddock already decamped in Melbourne when a McLaren team member tested positive for Covid.
With Australia still closed to international visitors, last year’s race was also scrapped from the calendar but organisers are hopeful of hosting the biggest sporting event in Australian sporting history in terms of numbers over the course of the next three days. An estimated 410,000 fans are expected through the turnstiles with 112,466 in attendance today, a rise of 33% from the same time in 2019.
