Russell names tricky aspect at Mercedes: 'Has definitely taken its toll'
F1 News
- GPblog.com
George Russell found his first season at Mercedes quite tough, but also instructive. The British driver made the switch from Williams, bringing him to a bigger team and putting his performance under a magnifying glass. However, there were more parts he had to get used to, he stressed in conversation with The Race.
The Mercedes driver is referring to the off-track activities he had to carry out for Mercedes. For instance, every weekend there are several press requests that the team has to meet. He also had to keep frequent time in his diary when it came to marketing.
Learning season should help Russell move forward
Russell estimates that this cost him around 60 days in 2022, losing valuable time to develop. The driver therefore intends to see if he can handle it differently next calendar year. "That’s definitely taken its toll on me," indeed, he reveals.
"I need to sort of understand and work out how I’m going to best deal with all of this because for sure, at times this year, I haven’t dealt with it that well." According to Russell, the growing number of races means drivers have even less time left to improve their cars and therefore requires a different strategy from Mercedes.