{"id":30097,"date":"2025-02-07T09:42:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-07T14:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=30097"},"modified":"2025-02-10T10:49:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-10T15:49:44","slug":"george-russell-mercedes-optimistic-about-2025-step-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/07\/george-russell-mercedes-optimistic-about-2025-step-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell: Mercedes &#8220;optimistic&#8221; about 2025 step forward"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As Mercedes finalise their work on the W16 before Bahrain testing, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/31\/george-russell-bottas-insights-into-ferrari-engine-could-be-key\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">George Russell<\/a> says the team is optimistic about their progress. The British driver anticipates a more competitive Mercedes in 2025 &#8211; with notable changes from last season.<\/p>\n<p>Should the Silver Arrows produce a car that can fight for the Championship, Russell is confident they will capitalise.<\/p>\n<h2>George Russell outlines Mercedes expectations for 2025<\/h2>\n<p>In some ways, last season was the most successful for Mercedes with the current generation of F1 cars.<\/p>\n<p>Although they finished the year in 4th (their worst Championship position since 2012), they secured four race wins &#8211; their highest number since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Russell and Hamilton both claimed the top step of the podium on two occasions, with the Silver Arrows often fighting at the very front.<\/p>\n<p>The team&#8217;s biggest limitation, not for the first time, was a vulnerability to huge swings in performance.<\/p>\n<p>An extremely small operating window saw <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/16\/why-mercedes-are-dark-horses-for-2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Mercedes<\/a> go from dominant results (like their 1-2 in Las Vegas) to underwhelming weekends as the slowest of the top four teams.<\/p>\n<p>One of their aims for 2025 is to establish a more consistent foundation and address their underlying issues.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"QcI3rZv2Qu5BY3NyyBCjMA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2168978184\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'QcI3rZv2Qu5BY3NyyBCjMA',sig:'05qrPiN4Var5ukyfgMyolQvVgQ-V4nZXQLmipoqvQtg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2168978184',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>Russell: We are going in the right direction<\/h4>\n<p>Speaking with Sky Sports, George Russell explained the team&#8217;s development progress:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0&#8220;There have been a lot of &#8211; I wouldn&#8217;t say changes directly from last year to this year &#8211; these are things that have been in the pipeline for a long time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Items we couldn&#8217;t quite put on the car in 2024, but we&#8217;ve been working on them for a long time.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We&#8217;re optimistic it will be a good step in the right direction,&#8221; <\/em>underlined the Mercedes driver.<\/p>\n<p>The 2025 season is a huge test for George Russell, who is tasked with leading the team in Lewis Hamilton&#8217;s absence.<\/p>\n<p>Rookie teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/11\/19\/kimi-antonelli-i-want-to-beat-russell-next-year\/\" target=\"_self\">Kimi Antonelli<\/a>, entering F1 after skipping Formula 3 and completing a single Formula 2 campaign, is highly rated within the team.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/01\/04\/toto-wolff-mercedes-wont-sacrifice-2025-for-2026-regulations\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Toto Wolff<\/a> opted to fast-track the 18-year-old into Mercedes, with Antonelli completing extensive testing over the last year.<\/p>\n<p>For all the excitement surrounding the youngster, Russell will be expected to establish himself as the lead driver.<\/p>\n<p>Should Antonelli get close to Russell&#8217;s, this would not necessarily warrant criticism for the 26-year-old &#8211; but instead validate the hype that has followed Antonelli since karting days.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"5pwJkckrSU5cu4yLpVD_LQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2189166284\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'5pwJkckrSU5cu4yLpVD_LQ',sig:'_QB1JYhgLFAw8_xxerjxv4jLUU0uPNWoMhPxmN-jUss=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2189166284',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h4>A big year for Mercedes<\/h4>\n<p>Still, the Briton obviously won&#8217;t want someone almost a decade his junior to become the reference.<\/p>\n<p>Following a series of campaigns with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/05\/hamilton-can-beat-leclerc-if-he-returns-to-usual-level-rosberg\/\" target=\"_self\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a> as a teammate, the 3-time race winner is confident in his abilities.<\/p>\n<p>Russell believes that with the right machinery, he is ready to deliver for Mercedes:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;You obviously never know what your rivals have done. Throughout this year, with a thought on 2026 &#8211; whether teams continue developing or not &#8211; that&#8217;s going to be intriguing.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I feel ready, everybody at the team is so motivated. I feel that these years &#8211; you know &#8211; it&#8217;s sort of been trial and error.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;But every time we&#8217;ve had a chance to win, we&#8217;ve won.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;And that&#8217;s what gives me the optimism that if we do have the car, we can achieve it.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Mercedes finalise their work on the W16 before Bahrain testing, George Russell says the team is optimistic about their progress. The British driver anticipates a more competitive Mercedes in 2025 &#8211; with notable changes from last season. Should the Silver Arrows produce a car that can fight for the Championship, Russell is confident they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":30098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2452,465,121,2461],"class_list":["post-30097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-f1-news","tag-mercedes","tag-w16"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30097"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30172,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30097\/revisions\/30172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}