George Russell has acknowledged that Mercedes has encountered significant hurdles with the W14, describing the team as “tripping over” itself amid ongoing issues.
The squad has faced challenging times over the past two years, achieving only a single victory at the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix, marking last season as their first without a win since 2011.
The team’s struggles were largely due to their initial design approach following the introduction of new ground effect regulations in 2022, which resulted in the W13 being severely affected by the porpoising phenomenon.
Although improvements were made with the W14, addressing the porpoising issue, challenges with high-speed instability and setup problems continued to hinder the team’s performance.
George Russell is optimistic, however, that with a better understanding of the issues faced by the W15, Mercedes is poised to challenge Red Bull for the championship title.
“The last two years have been challenging for the team, off the back of eight championships and finishing third and 2022 was a bit of a surprise,” said Russell.
“Not just the result, but the challenges we faced. We didn’t understand the car. The problems we were tripping over took a lot of time to understand and resolve.
“I feel like those two years we’ve we’ve learned so much as a team, we’ve developed our tools. We’ve got much better correlation from our simulations and wind tunnel to the real track, which is vital for the years to come.”
The Silver Arrows secured the runner-up position in the Constructors’ Championship, trailing Ferrari by a mere three points, even though they didn’t clinch a single race victory in 2023.
Despite not viewing the season as unsuccessful, Russell pointed out the significant gap between the team and Red Bull.
“Ultimately, if you look back on the last 10 years for the team, eight championships and then the bad years were P3 and P2,” said Russell.
“So it just goes to show the expectations we hold ourselves by. The result on paper wasn’t bad last year, but the reality of how far we were to take the Red Bull was too far.
“We know we’ve got a lot a lot of closing up to do. I’m confident this car is going to be a step in the right direction. But now we just have to continue working and continue pushing.”
