George Russell retains “faith” in Mercedes after launch of 2024 F1 car

George Russell has “faith” Mercedes have taken what they have learned over the last two years to produce a competitive F1 car in 2024.

Mercedes were the latest F1 team to pull the covers off their 2024 challenger - the W15 - on Wednesday morning.

The team have adopted an entirely new design philosophy after a winless 2023 campaign - their first since 2011.

Speaking at the launch of the W15, Russell explained why there’s such a high level of “anticipation” for the team.

“To be honest I couldn’t sleep last night because it’s this element of anticipation,” he said. “I think when you arrive at Round 3, 4 or 5, you’ve got an idea or expectation of your performance. When you arrive for the first test and the first race, you have no idea how this car is going to perform.

“You have an indication of the improvements you’ve made but you don’t know what your rivals have achieved. Have we made a step forward? Have we made any mistakes? Are there going to be cars from behind that have made an unexpected jump?

“This is the time of the year where everybody is sat in anticipation but all we can do is to look at ourselves in the mirror, maximise everything you can do, keep on working, don’t worry about the rest and I’ve got faith it’ll come.”

While Mercedes did finish second in the constructors’ championship in 2023, it was often Ferrari and McLaren who were Red Bull’s nearest challengers at a given weekend.

Russell remains confident Mercedes have learned from their mistakes over the past two seasons.

“We hit the ground in 2022 and the car wasn’t performing as we expected but we’ve learned so much as a team,” he added. “We’ve got such an amazing team - so many people, 2000 strong people across Brackley and Brixworth.

“So many people there are winners and champions, but there’s also so many new people there who are so motivated to get Mercedes back to the very top. I think that combination brings this fire within and everybody is just so excited, motivated, working so, so hard and as we said, we’ve seen all of the drawings, we’ve been in the wind tunnel, we’ve been driving it in the simulator, we’ve been seeing the designs on the computers with the Petronas green on the side and bringing the silver back to the race car so seeing it here as one is really an exciting moment.

“None of that matters until it hits the track and we see what the lap time produces.”