George Russell asserts that the Mercedes Formula 1 team must understand how it got the cooling requirements “wrong” with the packaging on its 2024 car in Bahrain.
Starting third, Russell had maintained position at the outset and then managed to close on a struggling Charles Leclerc to rise into second place in the nascent stages.
However, the Mercedes racer was unable to break clear of the pack behind having been told to not his overtake button and ended up falling behind both Ferrari drivers.
Likewise, Lewis Hamilton was informed that he must cool his engine, which thwarted his attempts at coming through and he climbed two places to finish in seventh.
Russell has concurred with Mercedes boss Toto Wolff that the concern cost them a sizeable amount of time and prevented the drivers from extracting the maximum.
“It was challenging, the engine was overheating after lap three as soon as I overtook Charles I had big red alarms on the steering wheel, we had to turn the power down to stop the engine overheating – it cost us probably four-tenths a lap and by that point we just went backwards so it’s a real shame because we didn’t show the car’s true potential,” Russell said.
“Yeah, we need to understand how we got that one wrong.”
Explaining the cause of the problem that hampered his race, Russell revealed that Mercedes failed to leave enough allowance for the cooling that was needed in the race.
“It was just simply the bodywork was too tight,” he elucidated. “We need to understand why we got that wrong.
“I mean it would only have been a small change, it probably wouldn’t have cost us hardly any lap time whatsoever. But we wouldn’t have faced these big problems.
“Maybe we were slightly too aggressive, I don’t know. Conditions changed today but we need to understand what went wrong.”
Pressed on whether it provided reason to be worried heading to Saudi Arabia in a weeks’ time, Russel retorted: No, no, no, no, no.
“It’s literally, you know, we have many different specifications. We went aggressive and we didn’t do very much.”
Russell also contends that the marque’s opening laps provided an encouraging sign of its potential, although he thinks battling Ferrari for a podium was unrealistic.
Asked how much confidence Mercedes could take from his strong start, Russell replied: “I think we’ve probably made a really good first couple of laps.
“To be honest, it’s really difficult to say where the true pace would have fallen out today because we had to turn the engine down, we had to do extra lift and coasts, which had an effect on the tyres, so it was sort of a downward spiral.
“I think the podium would have been just out of reach, but for sure we could have given it a better fight.”
Russell had been cautious that his impressive one-lap showing could have compromised his race, while Hamilton divulged that he had set up his car for longer stints.
However, Russell contends that he was led to believe that his car was more catered towards optimising the race runs than his team-mate, who finished 3.6s behind.
“Many people have said this, I don’t really know the big differences to be honest because as far as I’m aware, but the cars were pretty similar,” he claimed.
“And as I said, I didn’t really focus too much on his setup. Mine was actually more set up for the race than the setup he ran. At least it was on Friday.
“But the conditions changed today. I think it’s super sensitive for everybody. And yeah, we just need to go through everything.
“But as I said, our race was dictated today from the cooling problems.”
Despite qualifying proving to be a close affair, Red Bull’s dominance continued as Max Verstappen recorded a crushing win with 22s in hand over team-mate Sergio Perez.
While Russell reckons Verstappen is nailed on to retain his title, the Briton suspects that it’s premature to suggest that Red Bull’s advantage is larger than it was last term.
“I mean, for Lewis and I at least, we’ve definitely got a much better car this year. One I do believe we can build from.
“Red Bull have always been strong here. So have Ferrari, I’d say this has been a bit of a bogey track for us in the last couple of years.
“So I do think it’s too early to say, but no doubt, Max is the favourite, I don’t think anybody’s going to be fighting him for the championship this year but I hope some people are going to be battling for victories here or there.”
