{"id":30864,"date":"2025-02-24T08:58:34","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T13:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=30864"},"modified":"2025-02-24T08:58:34","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T13:58:34","slug":"george-russell-mercedes-w16-should-be-a-clear-step-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/24\/george-russell-mercedes-w16-should-be-a-clear-step-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell: Mercedes W16 should be a clear step forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the first time since 2012, Mercedes are entering an F1 season without Lewis Hamilton. The 7-time Champion’s departure has fast-tracked the promotion of Kimi Antonelli<\/a>, who alongside George Russell<\/a> forms a brand new partnership at Brackley.<\/p>\n

After three years alongside Hamilton, Russell will be expected to lead Mercedes for the foreseeable future – at least until Antonelli adapts to the demands of Formula 1.<\/p>\n

After claiming two victories last season, Russell believes he is ready to challenge for a World Championship.<\/p>\n

The question is whether the Mercedes W16 will represent a sizable step forward from its predecessor.<\/p>\n

Russell: Mercedes have learned from our mistakes<\/h2>\n

It is one thing to lack the performance to fight for wins. It is quite another, as Mercedes experienced in 2024, to fail in optimising the potential of your package.<\/p>\n

At various points last season, Mercedes were faster than anyone else. Aside from their four victories (Austin, Silverstone, Spa and Las Vegas), Toto Wolff’s team<\/a> also fought for wins at various venues.<\/p>\n

The issue for the German constructor was never raw pace. Instead, like many others, they struggled to create a wide enough operating window to perform consistently.<\/p>\n

Many teams have been plagued by discrepancies between the wind tunnel and the simulator during these regulations.<\/p>\n

Because of this, upgrade effectiveness has taken a considerable drop over the last few seasons.<\/p>\n

Even Red Bull<\/a>, who seemed to have a better understanding than anyone else about these cars, found themselves in this dilemma last season.<\/p>\n

For Mercedes, it is essential they ensure the W16 is not affected by the variables that so easily destabilised it last season.<\/p>\n

Speaking on this topic, George Russell showed optimism about the team’s progress:<\/p>\n

“I think it’s going to be a significant change this year, to be honest,” <\/em>Sky Sports<\/a> quotes him as saying.<\/p>\n

“Every year we’ve uncovered a problem, we’ve solved it, and it’s created a new one.<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’ve probably been a lot more disciplined with every change that we’ve made and been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running. Just to ensure we’re not going to fall into a new trap.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Everything to prove<\/h4>\n

Having recently acquired Valtteri Bottas<\/a> as a reserve driver, there is no shortage of talent in the Mercedes driver roster.<\/p>\n

There is an excess of talent, both from an engineering and driver perspective, at the Brackley-based operation.<\/p>\n

Still, it is unclear if James Allison and his technical team have finally mastered the nuances and technicalities of these ground-effect cars.<\/p>\n

From George Russell’s perspective though, good work has been done:<\/p>\n

“And so far, it’s a reasonable step, obviously you have no idea what everyone else is doing. It’s going to be, I feel like, quite an interesting season with how people deploy the resources between 2025 and 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I’m more confident this year that with the work we’ve done on the sim. We’ve got some really great simulator drivers putting in lots of effort.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Kimi’s been doing some really great work as well. I’m much more confident we’re not going to fall into a trap as we have done in the previous years.”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time since 2012, Mercedes are entering an F1 season without Lewis Hamilton. The 7-time Champion’s departure has fast-tracked the promotion of Kimi Antonelli, who alongside George Russell forms a brand new partnership at Brackley. After three years alongside Hamilton, Russell will be expected to lead Mercedes for the foreseeable future – at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":30865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[2452,121,2461],"class_list":["post-30864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-mercedes","tag-w16"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30864","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=30864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30866,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30864\/revisions\/30866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}