After leapfrogging the Scuderia in Montreal and Barcelona, George Russell believes Mercedes will encounter a Ferrari team in “pretty competitive” form during the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix.
Russell converted a pole position into third place at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve before finishing fourth behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Catalunya last weekend.
The uptick in Mercedes’ form coincided with a double-DNF for Ferrari Canada and Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finishing fifth and sixth behind the two Mercedes in Spain.
While Russell is confident that Mercedes will be strong this weekend at the Red Bull Ring, the third Sprint weekend of 2024, he predicts Ferrari will be in resurgent form as well.
“I think the Sprint race is coming at a good time for us, and we feel like the last three races have been really positive for us,” Russell said.
“Coming here, obviously, a very different circuit. Once again, I think Ferrari will probably be pretty competitive.
“They’ve been very good here for the last couple of years, but just, yeah, we feel really excited to be back in this mix.
“We know McLaren and Red Bull are still a little bit ahead of us, but it swings quick, and we saw in Montreal that we were probably the most competitive, so let’s see what this weekend brings.”
Mercedes has joined Ferrari in recent times as the gap amongst the top four Formula 1 teams continues to tighten.
This comes after the Brackley-based squad has introduced upgrades to its W15 F1 challenger in recent rounds, following a difficult start to the season that saw it cut adrift from the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.
Russell reflected on the work the Mercedes team has done to get itself into a competitive position amid the second leg of a triple-header in Austria.
“I think the team have done a great job sort of bringing these developments through earlier than expected and probably sort of in dribs and drabs rather than one big upgrade at one sort of race,” he said.
“So, you know, clearly the cars made a big step forward but we still need a little bit extra if we want to get in that fight week in, week out, but at the end of the day we’ve had two races so far with, you know, the whole package, one of which we probably could have won if we had the fastest car but the other one we were the third quickest and, you know, those were on the podium.
“So I think that’s also the natural fluctuations of car performance. Let’s see what the next two races bring, but for sure we’ve made a really good step.”
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