George Russell shares honest Mercedes talks which will bring the team ‘back to victory’

George Russell gave no insight into Mercedes' objectives, but he did hint that a bigger shift in the ideal direction was on the table, rather than efforts focused on enhancing what it already has.

According to George Russell, Mercedes has decided on a recovery strategy that it feels would get them back to the front of Formula 1.

It has now been revealed that the team's top management, drivers, and engineering personnel held an extensive meeting on the Tuesday after the Bahrain race to address its problems.

Russell previously stated to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that the meeting provided an honest analysis of the team's predicament and the team worked out what initiatives were required in the short, medium, and long term. George Russell stated:

“We all came together and had some very good, honest, open conversations, a lot of the questions were answered as to how we got ourselves in this position in the first place."

He then continued:

“Plus, what are we going to do in short term, and medium term, to get out of it? What path do we want to be on? Those changes are already in place, of getting on the track that we believe is going to bring us back to victory.”

Russell said that one of the meeting's conclusions was that Mercedes were overly conservative with their 2023 car design when it came to porpoising concerns. He said:

“When you look at the W13, we were clearly too aggressive with the car design and the bouncing, that was our big limitation."

Russell also suspected that Mercedes was pulled into committing to its zeropod concept due to his triumph at last year's Brazilian Grand Prix, which gave it too much trust that the design concept might succeed. Russell added:

“Perhaps Brazil did lead us down a bit of a wrong path, because we did feel like we were improving as a team, that we were going in the right direction."

George Russell said that after that long and intense meeting, the entire team, both on track and back in Brackley, is working hard to bring Mercedes back to the top of the charts.

“Those decisions have already been made. And we've already started working towards them, as of probably Tuesday last week. How quickly that can be brought to the car, how quickly that's going to translate into performance is another question.”

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George Russell blames Mercedes F1's collapse on a career milestone

After winning the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, Mercedes, according to George Russell, went downhill from there. The driver questioned if the notion they continued in 2023 was correct, calling it a terrible route. Mercedes took a rare 1-2 in Sao Paulo last year, when Russell won his maiden GP.

George Russell stated during his media duties in Jeddah that Brazil had definitely led them to be misguided. This was because the team believed they were on the right track and growing as a unit following their victory. The Silver Arrows, on the other hand, failed to create an impression at the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix.