Mercedes' George Russell has been in a decline in form since the Austrian Grand Prix. He has finished one fifth and two sixths in the last three races, while teammate Lewis Hamilton has finished one podium and two fourths. Mercedes is battling McLaren and Ferrari to be the second fastest team.
Russell said things have not been going well with the W14 since the beginning of July. When team principal Toto Wolff was asked about his decline in form, he said Russell was impressed with the difficulty of finding the right tuning on this year's car.
“These tools are on the cutting edge, so you can quickly fall behind and lose confidence,” Wolff said. said. “It's important to have the right setup, but this tool doesn't have one. However, you should be close to this point to understand what to do next.”
Chief technical officer Mike Elliot agrees that the ground-effect vehicles of this era need to stay close to the ground, making it difficult to maintain the right balance throughout a lap.
“I think the closeness of the cars to the ground makes things difficult,” Elliot said. said. "It's hard to find the right balance in the corner and cope with the stiffness of the cars."
"George is a great driver, I'm sure he will get what he needs in the car quickly."
Russell doesn't believe the car's design change has worked against him in Monaco, as the feel of the car hasn't changed since the start of the season, he says.
When asked if the drop in performance was related to updates, he replied, "No, I don't think so. I think it's just about our rhythm." said. “The car looks pretty similar to what it was at the beginning of the year. There are some minor changes but nothing to do with updates.”
“Sometimes things go well and you have confidence. Sometimes you lose a little confidence, and that creates a knock-on effect.”
After the Belgian Grand Prix, the last race before the summer break, Russell was feeling better about this issue for the second half of the season as he found some answers to why his final tuning picks didn't work.
