(Motorsports news) In the pre-event news conference for this weekend’s 2023 Dutch Grand Prix, Russell said, “I feel like as a team we’ve gone from strength to strength this season. Up until the Austrian race, there wasn’t much of a points differential between Mercedes and Aston, but it widened during the final three races before the summer break as the former dealt with its decision to significantly alter its Monaco sidepod alterations and the latter recovered from mistakes made during the development of its car.
“Despite only having five podium finishes to Aston Martin’s six, Mercedes is presently second in the teams’ standings, 256 points behind overwhelming leader Red Bull and 51 points ahead of the Silverstone squad. Aston had been Red Bull’s main rival for the majority of the first half of the current season, but it has since slipped behind Mercedes, which has continued to score despite times when Ferrari, McLaren, and Aston served as Red Bull’s primary pursuers.
“Obviously, we had high expectations going into the season, which is possibly the reason why some people have labeled it a failure. Naturally, it’s not where we want it to be because we want to be competing for championships, but to say that P2, which is currently 50 points ahead of P3, is a failure, is not at all accurate.
“We are aware that we have a lot to learn. We’ve come a tremendously long way, and I believe we can be there to hopefully pick up any slack in the second part of the season. But we can never be sure. “I think last year we had the mentality that Singapore would be our only opportunity in the second half to win a race, and when we didn’t win in Singapore, there was a little bit of disappointment and there was kind of no expectations going into Brazil and we came away with the victory there,” said Russell. We will therefore approach each race as an opportunity.
Russell added that Mercedes’ main objective for the remainder of 2023 is to “seal that P2 in the constructors'” by taking advantage of the ever-evolving form of the group now trailing Red Bull. We want to advance further, he declared. “I believe that as a team, we now hold a strong P2 position in the constructors’ championship.
We’ve made strides in our conflict with Aston Martin, but McLaren is undoubtedly a formidable opponent.But we want to keep becoming better. Naturally, we’d love to take home a race this year, but Max [Verstappen] and Red Bull are quite competitive. Russell finished second in the 2022 Dutch GP at Zandvoort, which gave Mercedes a shocking opportunity to defeat Red Bull and Ferrari as a result of its aggressive suggestion to try a one-stop strategy.
Because of late-race virtual and actual safety car interruptions, the attempt failed, but Russell sees “no reason why not” when it comes to the Brackley team trying anything similar in 2023. We typically perform well on these courses, the high downforce circuits, Russell continued.
“Budapest, we moved quickly. Along with Brazil [last year], this was definitely one of our more competitive circuits. “However, we are unsure of what the weekend will hold. Once more, the forecast appears to be highly erratic. But it doesn’t matter; I believe we can have a successful weekend regardless of the circumstances.
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