Russell: 'We take inspiration from our own old cars'

'Mercedes coming out of summer break strong'

The Briton told GPblog and other media after the Belgian Grand Prix. Mercedes was severely challenged at the start of the season by customer team Aston Martin and later in the season customer McLaren also proved able to give Mercedes a hard time. In the championship, Mercedes now has a "wide" lead over Aston Martin and Ferrari of more than 50 points, but that gap should be much bigger.

Russell: "I think they [McLaren] just had a really good run of form. It's often how it goes in this sport. When you're on the right foot, things are a little bit easier. You're not stressing the cars in the right place when you're put on the ground. I'm sure we're going to be strong in the second half of the season. We've got some little things coming after the break, but I'm confident we can secure that second-best team and try to close that gap further."

W14 can do more with right balance

To narrow that gap, the team needs to score better than Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. With Verstappen's current run, it seems impossible to narrow the gap to the Dutchman. In case Mercedes really wants to catch up, both Russell and teammate Lewis Hamilton will have to beat the Mexican Perez by wide margins over the next 10 races.

The improvements to be made in Mercedes' W14 lie mainly in the tuning. This is good news as there are apparently no major problems with the car. Russell: "Yes, it definitely can be tweaked. We're working really hard on the characteristics for next year. We're looking a lot at how the previous generations of cars were for Mercedes during glory years. Using that as a bit of inspiration, as clearly that was one of the best cars in history."