George Russell praised Mercedes’ team unity after the team ended a largely barren two-and-a-half years by scoring back-to-back wins in the last two rounds.
Mercedes struggled in the first two seasons under the current technical regulations, winning just a single grand prix late in 2022. However, following an overhaul of its car design this year, and a series of developments since the season began, Russell claimed victory in the Austrian Grand Prix at the end of last month. Lewis Hamilton followed that up by winning at Silverstone a week later.Russell, who is in his third season at Mercedes, said he was impressed how little had changed behind the scenes to achieve the turnaround, and gave credit to team principal Toto Wolff.
“We’ve stayed as one as a team,” he told the official F1 channel. “Everybody stuck together. There’s been no major changes within the organisation of Mercedes.
“You’ve got to give credit to Toto for believing in his people and just giving them a chance to do what they do best. I think that’s something that sets this team apart from many others.
“So far it seems like we’ve done a really great job of that so we’re just hoping to continue on this journey.”
The most significant change to Mercedes’ technical division during that time came took place in April last year. James Allison, who had been the team’s technical director until early 2021, returned to the role, swapping places with previous replacement Mike Elliott, who became chief technical officer. Elliott left Mercedes six months later.
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Despite Mercedes’ gains in recent races, Russell does not see them as potential championship challengers. They are already 152 points behind Red Bull with 573 available, and he trails Max Verstappen by 144 points in the drivers’ championship.
However he is hopeful Mercedes will be regular contenders for victory over the rest of the year.
“Already Max is a long way out in front and Lando’s in a pretty solid P2,” said Russell. “But I think the goal for us for the rest of the year is just to try and win as many more races as possible.
“Of course we’ve closed this gap massively, we’ve had two really great races in the last four. But still, when you look at it, Max has still won two of those races, finished second in another, should have finished second in Austria. It’s not been a bad run of form for those guys either.
“So we’re no doubt closer than ever. We just need to see this race weekend, and in Spa, I think if we have two good race weekends here, we’ll be fast everywhere. We said that in Silverstone, but if we can achieve it again these next two, I think we’ll be there for the rest of the season.”
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2024 Hungarian Grand Prix
- Verstappen names Hungarian GP the most stressful moment of his title-winning year
- McLaren team orders “a new situation we’re inexperienced at handling” – Piastri
- Verstappen dismisses critics of “vocal” radio messages and late-night simracing
- Norris’ former McLaren team mates say he was right to give up win
- Mercedes surprised Hamilton’s car was “completely unscathed” in Verstappen clash
FlyingLap (@flyinglapp)
18th July 2024, 18:58
Hamilton must be hoping that Ferrari start making improvements soon. Or maybe they’re just in need of his services earlier than they anticipated.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
18th July 2024, 19:18
George was on holiday that week.
David BR (@david-br)
18th July 2024, 19:58
@sjaakfoo If that was the extent of the personnel changes, then really that’s maximum karma earned by Mercedes. Must be the most zen turnaround ever.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
18th July 2024, 20:42
Sure, top management switches are never felt throughout a company.
David BR (@david-br)
18th July 2024, 23:49
@sjaakfoo Presumably they wanted effects to be felt! My point was nobody was sacked, just swapped around.
anon
18th July 2024, 21:55
@sjaakfoo if all you can point to is the change between Allison and Elliott then, considering that pretty much every other team on the grid has had more changes in senior personnel in the past few years, Russell would be making a valid point about Mercedes being relatively stable by comparison.
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
19th July 2024, 10:20
anon,
There has been a significant management reshuffle at Mercedes, and that’s undeniable. Senior figures like Mike Elliot, Loic Serra, Ben Hodgkinson, James Vowles… have all left their roles. Other non technical managers like Jerome d’Ambrosio, Stefan Strahnz…left too. Also the PU department underwent a complete reorganization due to the shopping made by RB Powertrains. This is part of the business and it’s completely normal.
What’s not normal is that Mercedes is continuously portraying itself as a paragon of corporate virtue with slogans like “we blame the problem, not the people.”, “we race as one”, “one for all, all for one”… which is not true as evidenced by the handling of Mike Elliot’s case. There has been significant turnover among the top F1 teams for various reasons, yet Mercedes is the only one desperately trying to downplay it.
This is also facilitated by their PR machine, which feeds biased media the narratives they need to parrot. These are the same media outlets now reporting on the so-called great loss of Enrico Cardile to Aston Martin. Cardile was the technical director during a decade when Ferrari consistently failed to develop a car over a season, with the exception of 2023.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
18th July 2024, 19:30
Agree with russell, it’s nice they sticked to the people they had and made it work to bring the car back to fighting against the best competitors of the moment, instead of firing people often like ferrari does.
Nick T.
19th July 2024, 3:56
And they did it in no time at all!
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
19th July 2024, 6:04
I don’t know why such thing is shown as a sign of strength. Norris said the same about McLaren. So what if teams have to hire new people to turn around their seasons?
SilverArrow
19th July 2024, 8:39
Ferrari are very slow and are w terrible team
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
19th July 2024, 10:56
They have been hiring senior figures from both RBR and Ferrari but apparently are ashamed to mention it. Angelo Rosetti, Emanuele Guidotti, Enrico Sampò, Simone Resta are former senior Ferrari engineers that have joined Mercedes recently.
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
19th July 2024, 15:03
It’s like downplaying the amount of progress a team like Haas made after re-organizing.
Why is it a shame?
Tifoso1989 (@tifoso1989)
19th July 2024, 15:19
@fer-no65
They are concerned with their polished corporate image.
Seppo (@helava)
19th July 2024, 17:13
Alpine achieved no turnaround with ‘major organisational changes’ – Gasly