Mercedes driver George Russell said he feels more confident for the 2024 season as their new F1 car won’t be as rushed as last year’s.
The Silver Arrows have had a season of recovery in 2023 after greatly struggling with the implementation of the new regulations in 2022. However, they still have a long way until they catch the dominant performance of Red Bull, which finished last year on top with a different of 451 points to second place.
Speaking to the media, Russell said he felt “more confident” because his team has worked “on the new [car] concept for a long time.
“I think last year it was all a little bit rushed,” he said, adding that they “didn’t have all the information to hand, we may have jumped to a couple of conclusions withouth thorougly going through the consequences.
“We made a step forward in some regards, but it came with a lot of baggage and we hadn’t taken that into consideration. I think we’ve done a great job to truly understand what we need.”
Russell admitted that the gap to Red Bull is significant, and Mercedes has got “a huge task” on its hands to catch them.
“I’m going into next year with an open mind,” he added.
“I don’t think anyone’s expecting either us, McLaren, Aston Martin or Ferrari to make that step straightaway. But I’m definitely confident we won’t fall into some of the traps we did [in 2023].”