Russell predicts that Mercedes will gain “great” confidence from Australia

No matter what happens in the race, George Russell claimed that his Mercedes was the “greatest” car he had ever raced. The team also remarked that qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix gave them “tremendous” confidence.

The powerful Red Bull champion Max Verstappen and the British driver will line up together on the first row in Melbourne on Sunday, with teammate Lewis Hamilton starting third.

Their efforts, which outperformed Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin and both Ferraris, gave rise to expectations that they may place third.

Toto Wolff, the team manager, claimed last week that Mercedes had improved since the season’s first two grand prix, and Russell expressed his delight.

He stated, “I believe we are learning more about this car; I don’t believe it is where we want it to be, but it has evolved, just for the set up, from Bahrain to Jeddah to here.

The tyres undoubtedly played a significant role this past weekend, but it was still disappointing to finish behind Verstappen by 2.5 tenths of a second when we have previously finished a second ahead.”

Mercedes’ performance on Saturday was its best of the season, and the team will make major improvements over the next few weeks as Australia works to further develop its W14 car.

Russell expressed his excitement at the possibility.

I don’t think the way the automobile feels is its limitation; it feels very good, he remarked.

“It’s definitely the best F1 vehicle I’ve ever driven, but we just need a little more downforce.

But we are aware that we have made significant progress over the last two to three weeks, and we anticipate bringing that to the track as soon as possible.

No matter what tomorrow brings, this result today will give us a great deal of confidence.”

It remains to be seen if their rekindled speed would be sufficient to compete with Verstappen, but Russell insisted he was realistic.

“We have to aim for the win, obviously, but there’s no denying Max is going to be really fast,” he remarked.

“This circuit makes overtaking challenging, thus the initial lap will be crucial.

It will be quite challenging to compete with Max because of the Red Bull’s incredible top speed, but let’s see.

AFP