George Russell vows “significant change” at Mercedes, won’t fall into same “trap”
“It’s going to be a significant change this year…”
George Russell believes the Mercedes Formula 1 team ‘won’t fall into traps’ it has done in the past with its 2025 car as winter development has been “more thorough than ever”.
Mercedes has struggled to replicate its dominant form from the previous decade since F1’s ground effect rules revolution in 2022.
Struggling with bouncing through the 2022 campaign, efforts to try to fix this have only created new issues, with the team going without a win in 2023.
While it returned to winning ways in 2024, Mercedes ended the year fourth in the constructors’ table - its lowest placement in the standings since it was fifth in 2012.
But Russell believes the work done with the 2025 car has ensured a “significant change” and is confident Mercedes can avoid the issues it has battled in recent seasons.
“I think it’s going to be a significant change this year, to be honest,” Russell said on Tuesday ahead of the F1 75 launch event in London.
“Every year we’ve uncovered a problem, we’ve solved it and it’s created a new one.
“We’ve probably been a lot more disciplined with every change we’ve made. We’ve been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running, just to ensure that we’re not going to fall into a new trap.
“And so far it’s a reasonable step. Obviously, you have no idea what everyone else is doing and it’s going to be quite an interesting season with how people deploy the resource between 2025 and 2026.”
George Russell on Mercedes' hopes for 2025
Asked why it’s taken Mercedes so long to get on top of its problems, Russell said: “I think in 2022 there were more issues with the car than first met the eye.
“Everything was dominated by the bouncing, and we couldn’t unpick what was bouncing and what were poor characteristics in the car.
“So, it took a good 18 months to solve bouncing. Then we recognised that we had a bit of a problem with the suspension.
“We changed the suspension, then that caused a balance problem. These things, it does just take time and I think when something clicks and something works you also sometimes don’t know quite why that is.
“We went to Vegas last year and dominated. I’d love to tell you exactly why that is.
“We’ve got some ideas why that could be, but they are not like a silver bullet to say that’s why we were so strong there and that is the reason why we were so weak elsewhere.”
Russell added that Mercedes has pushed to fix problems without considering the side-effects these could create for the drivers.
“I think the last couple of years we’ve been so focused on solving the problem that we weren’t looking ahead to what future issues it would cause,” he said.
“You solve one thing and then it creates a new problem. So, we’ve been forward thinking much more than we have been in the past.
“That’s quite normal in the world of aero when you’re developing in the wind tunnel.
“But when you’re changing characteristics of the car and the way it’s going to handle, how it’s going to feel for us driving it: if you make the front stronger, it’s going to take away from the rear, and if you go too far that’s just as much of a problem as if it’s in the opposite direction.
“So, I think it’s really being thorough: these are the fundamental changes we’re going to make, we think it’s going to do ‘X’, if there’s going to be a problem then how do we drive round it?”
Quotes provided by Crash F1 Editor Lewis Larkam
