'Buzzing' Mercedes dreaming of victory — if it passes Montreal F1 test

“So on paper, I wouldn’t say this would suit our strengths. But we’ll take confidence out of that. But we’re not really thinking about Aston Martin and Ferrari. Our sights are set on Red Bull and Verstappen.

“And as satisfying as the [Barcelona] weekend was getting a double podium finish, by Monday morning that was kind of history, and you’re already looking forward to when’s the next improvement, how we’re going to close that gap. And probably we still need to find half a second if we want to catch them up and overtake.”

Russell is adamant that the team is in a much better position than it was this time a year ago. In other words there was no logic to the unexpected 2022 Barcelona form, whereas this time the team knows it has made a genuine step, and that there is more to come.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “We’ve got a very different car this year, compared to what we had in Montreal this time last year. So we’ve learned a lot, understand a lot.

“There’s still more we need to get on top of, it’s still not fully sorted just yet. But I expect to be in a stronger position this week than we were this time last year. Still I expect probably Aston Martin to be pretty quick round here.”

“Red Bull is probably actually quite in line with the performance of the Mercedes”

The obvious question is what difference have the changes made?

“After the race you don’t need to look so far down the timesheets to see our names!,” smiled Russell. “It’s difficult when you go from all these different circuits, as I said, even just comparing Barcelona to this weekend, the tracks are totally different.

“You go to a track like Jeddah, I think for all the teams all the drivers, the cars feel really nice there, the track’s really smooth, no bumps, the tarmac is really grippy.

“So even in the slowest car on the grid, it still feels pretty good. Whereas you go to other tracks, even the fastest car doesn’t feel so nice to drive. So is it truly is a relative game. No doubt we as drivers have more confidence in the rear of the car.

“But we’ve still got things to improve. Our qualifying pace is not good enough. And we’re consistently getting outqualified by Aston Martin, Ferrari and Alpine, other cars here and there. And if we want to fight to absolutely, always be ahead of them, we need to find some performance on Saturday.”

Russell has an interesting take on how the teams compare. A feature of this season is that most cars appear to be either good in qualifying, or good in races.

Mercedes clearly falls into the latter category, but intriguingly he insists that so does Red Bull – not that you’d know it from Verstappen’s regular qualifying pace.

“I think the Red Bull is probably actually quite in line with the performance of the Mercedes, when you look at the delta, Saturday/Sunday,” he says.

“The Red Bull and Mercedes are probably the two teams that are the outliers, because Red Bull has so much margin, they’re still managing to qualify on pole, or worst case behind a Ferrari. But then on a Sunday, they’re miles quicker.

“So it’s just because our base performance is so low or is lower than Red Bull’s we’re being punished for it on a Saturday. But still, I don’t think short-term, we’re going to change our approach. If we find more base performance, we will then be qualifying second row, P5 worst case, and then you’re in a great position to fight for victory.”

Russell’s team-mate Hamilton has done a good job of keeping a lid on his frustration this year, having realised early on that doggedly sticking with the previous concept was the wrong call. Now things are moving again, and he’s clearly got confidence that the improvements will continue.

“Yeah, definitely a lot, that we’ve been making progress,” he said. “And the car, [after the] last race, we’ve all been buzzing, I think, back at the factory.

“And the whole team has this new energy and kind-of feels like we’ve got a North Star. We know where we’re going; we know how to get there.

“Everyone’s just churning away and working as hard as possible. So, excited to come here. We genuinely don’t know whether this track suits our car, and the car’s characteristics, but the weather may change that, and we’ll see.”

Hamilton has not won a race since Jeddah in December 2021. Amid increasing talk of his contract negotiations with Toto Wolff it appears that he wants to commit to the team beyond the end of this season, so clearly he has faith that the team can get back into a winning position in time for him to log that eighth title.

He insists that the victory drought is not a burden to him, suggesting that he can see light at the end of the tunnel. The point is that there’s much more potential in the package now, whereas the previous iteration had plateaued.

“Together we can get there if we just keep our heads down and focus on the science”

“I don’t feel any weight,” he said of the winless streak. “We’ve gone through a tough patch and we’re kind of like on that up. For example, the last race and some of the races, it feels like we’ve had wins. It’s just about perspective.

“Of course, we’ve not been in first place but there have been many wins in the steps that we’ve taken. Last race, for us, as a team, to be on the podium with both drivers, that was a win for us. And so we’re just focused.

“We know, as I was just saying earlier, that we have that North Star. We know where we need to go. We don’t know everything of how to get there but we know that together we can get there if we just keep our heads down and focus on the science.

“The engineering team is fantastic within the organisation. We’ve got great development team and I honestly think we’ve got the best development rate, as good if not better than any team in the sport, and so you’ve just got to keep chipping away.”

The run up to the summer break will be telling, and it will be fascinating to see how the W14 compares with rivals in Austria and beyond after all those temporary tracks somewhat clouded the picture and made it difficult even for the teams to get a handle on their cars.

“It’s a very challenging start to the season for teams to understand the cars, and for rookies coming into the championship,” says Russell.

“I thought it was quite harsh on the driver, like Nyck [de Vries], for example, obviously an experienced driver, but first year in F1. It’s not an easy start to the season with the circuits that are on the calendar.

“Definitely looking forward to more normal tracks. But that’s the excitement that this sport is, if it’s straightforward for everybody, nobody’s going to be able to take a competitive advantage.

“So you need these challenges for, the best drivers to come out of top, the best teams and the best engineers to come out on top. And if it’s too easy for everybody, you’re not going to get those differences.”