Russell draws hope from changes at Mercedes: 'Won't give away too much'

Mercedes has so far failed to make the step it envisaged after its disappointing 2022 Formula 1 season, but George Russell says there is light on the horizon. He sees his team working hard on "big changes" that should ensure better results.

After an extremely dominant period in F1, Mercedes completely missed the mark in 2022. The German team was so convinced of its much-discussed zero side pod concept that it decided to largely stick to it in 2023 as well. However, after disappointing results in the opening race, team boss Toto Wolff admitted that the current concept was not working.

Meanwhile, the team is working hard to make the necessary changes to the W14. Russell, who realises all too well that he and teammate Lewis Hamilton are currently unable to fight for victories, hopes this will help Mercedes find its way back to the top.

"We are here to win, we’re here to fight for victories and for the championship, and clearly we’re not in a position to do that at the moment," Russell admitted in conversation with Formula1.com. "But big changes are incoming... Naturally you can’t get things brought that quickly to the car, but I think in due course, we’ll see some big changes and hopefully the lap times represent that."

The Mercedes driver himself is also doing his part by testing updates in the simulator, but would not say much about the expected improvements. "We are working really hard at the moment with these changes. I won’t give too much away, and we need to make sure they work as expected," explained the 25-year-old Briton.

At the Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes was in considerably better shape than in the first two races of the year, but a potential podium turned into a DNF for Russell. "As we have said a number of times, we’re probably finding more gains in the past two or three weeks than we found over the whole winter by clearly developing in the wrong window – so it’s definitely heading in the right direction," the Mercedes driver said.