Mercedes F1 driver
George Russell reflected on the Mercedes team's development progress over seasons 2022 and 2023.
On one hand, this suggests that the Mercedes team still struggles with understanding their car concept. On the other hand, Toto Wolff said
the team will be changing the car completely for season 2024.
Russell lately revealed that Mercedes already managed to test some of the parts for the 2024 car throughout the course of this season. The 25-year-old told the media, as reported by
racingnews365.com:
"12 months on, we have a further 12 months of information, and we've managed to implement some of those changes we want for 2024 in certain tests this year."
Russell also mentioned this year's car is nowhere near where the team hoped it would be this season. As a consequence, Mercedes had to change its approach towards testing and development in 2023.
"We were just trying so many different things, and it was more quantity over quality testing, and this year, we've really nailed down on the direction we want to go."
The Mercedes driver seems to be very confident in the direction that Mercedes is taking now, as he said the team won't be "caught out by anything" in 2024.
"We've tripled-checked our processes with the direction we've taken and I'm confident 12 months later, with our two years of learnings, that we're not going to be caught out by anything."
"That doesn't mean we're going to have the fastest car, but it just means I don't think we are going to stumble at the first hurdle."