SUMMARY
- Mercedes and George Russell aim for the championship after struggles with the W14, eyeing a comeback in 2024.
- Russell expresses optimism for the 2024 season, believing Mercedes is in a stronger position after intensive preparations.
After a long-fought battle with the W14, the Mercedes team and George Russell are hoping to compete for the championship title in the 2024 season. In light of their dominance in the two years prior, Russell put forward steadfast conviction that Red Bull would begin the season as the team with the edge. Since the Austrian outfit has redirected the face of the sport as being one-sided, Russell seems to have a big task in hand.
The crew has not been up to par since the Briton entered Mercedes, and the Silver Arrows dropped completely from the title race at the same time. Russell is nevertheless optimistic that the situation will change. Ahead of Mercedes’ 2024 challenger announcement, he considers the company will benefit from its errors in the past.
George Russell shares his thoughts on the W15 challenger
The upcoming 2024 season appears to be a silver lining for all teams who failed to defeat Red Bull in the previous campaign. To retain their status as a top-tier team, Mercedes must regain their prominence on the grid. George Russell argues that they are going to benefit from putting in additional time to prepare.
George Russell says Mercedes are “confident” in the W15 and think they can catch Red Bull, but believes Red Bull will start 2024 on top:
“I certainly think we’re in a better place now than we were 12 months ago.”
“We’ve been working towards our new car concept for a number of… pic.twitter.com/0JJgzrnUcK
— Mercedes-AMG F1 News (@MercedesNewsUK) January 4, 2024
According to the 25-year-old driver, “I certainly think we’re in a better place now than we were 12 months ago. We’ve been working towards our new car concept for a number of months. We’ve cross-checked everything 1,000 times, and we’re all very confident. There’s no doubt Red Bull will start the season on top. But it is a long season. It starts earlier than ever and finishes later than ever. Things can change.”
Reflecting, Russell hailed the team for gathering information from the 2023 season to find out what’s to come in the future. He assures that the team will avoid making similar missteps again in 2024 with the W15.
Mercedes overhauls W15 for 2024 car
Despite placing second in the constructors’ championship, the German manufacturer had no chance to defeat the potent Red Bull team shortly after an uphill season. After a lot of thought, the team resolved to take an alternate strategy to design for 2024. Currently, the team principal, Toto Wolff, has made public the extensive makeover that is now taking place at Brackley.
#F1 | Toto Wolff on the W15:
“That step that Aston made from last year being among the slowest team, to the beginning of the season, being clearly 2nd fastest, it shows that you can have a big step forward
So we’re going to make a 𝘁𝘄𝗼-𝗮𝗻𝗱-𝗮-𝗵𝗮𝗹𝗳 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱 step” 😳 pic.twitter.com/3ikKYxT7FO
— The Russell Report (@sixtythreenews) December 5, 2023
When speaking about the modification on the upcoming car, Wolff said, “We are changing the concept, we are completely moving away from how we laid out the chassis, the weight distribution, the airflow, I mean literally there is almost every component that has been changed because only by doing that do we have a chance.”
The Silver Arrows team principal advocated that there would be a change in “every component” of the W15. The second driver on board, Lewis Hamilton seems to be very impressed by the developments as well. Mercedes was sticking with their ‘zeropod’ approach for the duration of the majority of the recent regulatory cycle, despite its historical victory the year prior.