Much Of Mercedes's W15 'Has Been Designed Around Hamilton's Wishes' Says Russell
F1Thursday, 29 February 2024 at 12:00
George Russell suggested Mercedes has been listening much more to their drivers, mainly Lewis Hamilton, during the development of this year's car, W15.
As we know, Mercedes failed to deliver their drivers a championship-contending car during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. Hamilton recently revealed the team just wouldn't listen to him.
The seven-time World Champion went as far as to call the W14 (2023 challenger) an "evil sister" of W13 (2022 challenger). He also mentioned some of his engineers admitted after the start of the 2023 season that he was right.
According to what George Russell suggested in his interview with the media in Bahrain, the German team focused a lot more on listening to drivers' wishes and feedback in relation to the new car. He said:
"I think Lewis and I have put a huge amount of work into helping steer the team and the direction we want to go in."
While the 25-year-old also had his say, the voice of the seven-time World Champion with all his experience was what steered the development direction of the major part of the car.
"Obviously, with Lewis's experience, a lot of the car has been designed around his wishes - the car being sat further rearwards than we were last year, the Red Bull-esque sidepods, and a slightly different steering rack."
"It is good the team has been listening to that, but we need to see if that translates into lap time."
Mercedes's new W15 looks almost nothing like the W14. The team also introduced many revolutionary changes, but will the car allow its drivers to compete for at least a few race wins?
Russell's 39-year-old teammate said Mercedes is not where they would want to be ahead of the start of this season and doesn't expect to be fighting for the front positions at the beginning, but how they perform is yet to be seen this Friday and Saturday.
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