The favorite
For the first time since racing in F1 George Russell arrives at the start of a season with the role of favorite among the media and insiders for winning the World Championship. It is a summary judgment, based on pre-season testing and rumors of a Mercedes that has managed better than its rivals to interpret the new power unit regulations. The person concerned, however, did not seem too interested in the judgment 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 your helmet and lower your visor, you go full throttle and don’t think about all this background noise. We take it one race at a time and see how it goes“.
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Is Red Bull playing?
In turn, speaking in a meeting with journalists different from the press conference organized by the FIA, Russell tried to turn the spotlight on Red Bull, which 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 Mercedes’ #63 – 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 have lost 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 turns out“.
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The 2022 Ferrari precedent
Even if Mercedes were to start the World Championship by winning, Russell then warned everyone in the press conference against considering the championship already closed, citing a relatively recent precedent that Italian fans know well: “On the occasion of 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 it 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 will not define the season and that, if we want to win, we must continue to push. And we are ready to do it”.
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