George Russell says Mercedes appears to have addressed the undesirable characteristics of the W16 that made last year’s car unpredictable to drive.
The German team won four races last year with the W15 car, which was very competitive in certain conditions, but Russell and his former teammate Lewis Hamilton were often confused by sudden changes in the car’s balance.
“It was clear that last year we had a lot of problems in hot races and we had a lot of oversteer when the track was very hot,” said Russell. “That’s something we tried to eliminate with the W16 car.”
“Of course, it’s harder for everyone when it’s hot. But it was obvious that we were losing performance in those conditions.”
“Also, the car was on the edge of control. You saw last year we had a few crashes – if you went out of the optimal operating range, you would end up in the wall.”
“That’s why we focused on making the car easier to drive, more intuitive. And I think, from what we’ve seen so far, it looks like we’ve succeeded in that.”
However, Russell pointed out that the weather conditions in Bahrain were colder and windier than usual. He said the team would need to carefully analyse the behaviour of the W16 car in normal conditions to ensure good performance on all tracks.
“It’s very important to take the data from this weekend and take into account the conditions we had,” he explains. “But we also have to think about how the car would behave if the temperature was 20 degrees higher or if the wind was coming from a completely different direction.”
“That’s why we use the simulator, because it’s not enough to say that the car feels great here in Bahrain at 15 degrees. We will never drive in Bahrain at 15 degrees, nor will the wind be as strong as it is today.”
“That’s why correlation with the simulator is extremely important – so that we can go through different conditions and anticipate possible limitations in different circumstances.”
