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George Russell was not overly happy with the performance of the Mercedes at his disposal after the first day at the Bahrain GP. The young British driver cut a sorry figure when talking to the media later in the day as he reflected on the car's performance. Russell made it clear that the car was not where they wanted it to be and the team had a lot of work that needed to be done.
The Briton said:
“It is clear it is all about lap time and we certainly are not where we want to be," said Russell in assessing his day. We made a bit of progress solving some issues but the pace is not there at all at the moment so we really need to go over the data to understand where we are both struggling a bit with the car. We are a long way off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, even the likes of AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo are seemingly on our pace or even quicker. We have got a bit of work to do.”
George Russell claims Mercedes consistently slower than rivals
Mercedes had a rather dismal FP1 and FP2 with Lewis Hamilton, as the British driver finished a lowly 7th and 9th in FP1 and FP2. George Russell, on the other hand, fared much better in FP2 where he clocked a time that was fourth fastest in both the sessions.
When asked if there were any positive signs with his laptime in FP1 and FP2, however, George Russell didn't sound too confident and pointed at the long runs where the Mercedes was slower. He said:
“No, but that is one lap. I don’t think you can read too much into that one lap. I think the high-fuel is a bit more representative and we were consistently over a second slower than where our rivals are. I need to look into the data a bit further. Maybe there is a reason for it but from our side, we are definitely not overly happy with the car right now.”
Mercedes has tried a rather radical design solution for the new regulations as compared to the rest of the grid. The "no-sidepod" Mercedes was expected to shock the entire grid with its performance. As it turns out, however, the car does not look as balanced as the Ferrari or the Red Bull, and the German team appears to have a deficit that needs to be overcome.
