George Russell has reiterated that Mercedes now has a better base to build upon with its 2024 Formula 1 car but admitted that the team is still “lacking downforce”.
Mercedes has committed to a complete revamp with the W15 as it bids to revive its fortunes after a turbulent past two years in which it has taken just one race win.
The German marque has moved on from the failed ‘zeropod’ concept it began each of those seasons with amid its aim to deliver a more benign and compliant car.
Russell provided a positive assessment of the changes Mercedes has made after pre-season, labelling its latest machine as “not the diva it was the last two years”.
However, Russell proclaims that the porpoising phenomenon that engulfed several teams at the beginning of this ground effect era has reappeared for Mercedes.
When asked whether there had been issues that had carried over from the W15’s troubled predecessor, Russell said: “I would say this year’s car is a totally different race car.
“To the point that the things we learned from last year in the way we were setting the car up, we will need to approach it differently this year. So, there’s a lot to learn about this.
“And it feels much closer to how a race car should feel.
“But the one area that we need to continue to work on is probably the bouncing that we’re seeing. We got caught up with a bit of bouncing last week.
“We were pushing the car really aggressively. But as I said, we’re dealing with a totally different beast this year, whereas 2022, 2023 they were both cut from the same cloth.”
But Russell is optimistic that Mercedes will overcome the issue more seamlessly on this occasion, citing that the team is “pushing the boundaries” at this nascent stage.
“Now we’re still pushing the boundaries, to be honest, and exploiting the limitations of the car that we’re testing this for,” he added.
“I’d like to think you’ll be seeing much less of that this weekend.
“So, three years on, I think a lot of teams can still enter this circuit and set the car up in a too low and aggressive manner.
“But it’s always a fine line because that’s where the downforce is.”
Aside from the bouncing that it experienced in testing, Russell also accepts that Mercedes must unlock more downforce to challenge the likes of Red Bull at the top.
But with Mercedes having dialled out the “spiteful” rear end characteristics of its capricious W14 charger, the Briton believes the engineers can fixate on performance.
“I’m confident the development slope of this car should be greater than we’ve seen in the past two cars, because we’ve got a better platform,” Russell asserted.
“But it’s just outright performance [Mercedes need to find]. The car is feeling nice to drive, it’s feeling good to drive. But we’re just lacking downforce.”
