Russell adamant over Mercedes: We're not making the same mistakes again

George Russell is adamant that Mercedes will not go down the wrong development direction again, after making mistakes with its 2023 challenger.

The Briton admitted the W14 was a more difficult car to drive this year compared to the troubled W13, having failed to win a race for the first time since the 2011 season.

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton admitted that he knew Mercedes was in trouble when he saw it had elected to stick with the zero sidepod design approach at the beginning of the season.

Mercedes eventually switched to a more conventional downwash design, mimicking the Red Bull RB19 which won 21 of the 22 races in 2023.

Russell expects the Silver Arrows will not make the same mistakes for 2024, as it looks to close the gap to its old title rivals.

"Last year's was a trickier car to drive. We made some big improvements but what has caught us out this year has stemmed from the winter development," Russell told media, including RacingNews365.

"We took the wrong direction. We made some mistakes and that was evident as soon as we hit the track in Bahrain. Going into our third year now, I'm confident we're not going to make those same mistakes.

"We've got some good gains over this winter we're finding at the moment. But maybe it's all relative and we don't know what our rivals are going to bring."

Russell: There is small differences between our driving styles

Russell matched Hamilton in head-to-head performances this year at 11 a piece, while the latter was the faster of the two but by a minimal margin: the seven-time world champion was averaged just 0.017 seconds faster.

When asked if there is much of a difference between their driving style, Russell responded: "There's definitely small differences. But the underlying limitations that we have are exactly the same and what we're chasing is exactly the same.

"F1 is so complex with these tyres that it does take a lot to change your driving style, how you approach a corner, how you attack the corner, to have a substantial impact for good or bad on the tyres.

"We definitely have some driving style differences, which favour me a certain circuits and that favour him at others."