The favorite
For the first time since he raced in F1 George Russell comes at the start of a season with the favorite role of the media and professionals for winning the World Cup. This is a summary judgement, based on the pre-season tests and on the rumors of a Mercedes that has managed better than its opponents to interpret the new power unit regulations. However, the person concerned did not seem too interested in the opinion of his colleagues: “Nothing changes. I think there is a lot of talk about us as Mercedes and I take it as a compliment. However, once you put on the helmet and lower the visor, you go full throttle and don’t think about all this background noise. Let’s take one race at a time and see how it goes“.
Is Red Bull playing?
In turn, speaking in a different meeting with journalists than the press conference organized by the FIA, Russell attempted to turn the spotlight on Red Bullwho in his opinion played hide and seek more than others during the Bahrain tests: “I think Red Bull looked suspiciously slow in the second test – commented the #63 of Mercedes – we had considered them probably the fastest in the first test while, based on our data, they went seven tenths slower than themselves in the second test. We and Ferrari on the other hand went a couple of tenths faster with some new updates to the car. So I struggle to understand how they could lose seven tenths in a week. I expect them to be very strong, to be honest. And that’s why we’re all very curious to see how it will end“.
The precedent for Ferrari 2022
Even if Mercedes were to start the World Championship by winning, Russell in the press conference then warned everyone against considering the championship already closed, also citing a relatively recent precedent that Italian fans know well: “At the last regulation change, Ferrari was the team that started best and after three or four races it looked like the one that would win the championship, but at the end of 2022 he wasn’t even remotely in contention for the title. So, our mentality, regardless of whether we have a successful weekend or a difficult weekend, is that Melbourne is not going to define the season and that, if we want to win, we have to keep pushing. And we are ready to do it.”.
