Russell calls for Mercedes to avoid F1 'traps'

George Russell believes his Mercedes team can avoid falling into old F1 "traps" with its new "disciplined" approach. 

Mercedes has had a tricky ground-effects era in F1, and has not fully got on top of the 2022 regulations as grand prix racing heads into the final season of the rules cycle. 

In that time, Mercedes opted for the wrong sidepod solution in 2022 with its zeropod design, before committing again to it in 2023, finally abandoning it for '24.

The team has won five races since 2021, with four of those coming with the W15 of 2024, but that proved a tricky car to get into the optimum operating window, with new team leader Russell hopeful a new refined approach can avoid the same "traps" as previous years.

"I think it is going to be a significant change this year, and to be honest, we say every year that we've uncovered a problem, we've solved it and then it has created a new one," Russell told media including RacingNews365. 

"We've been a lot more disciplined with every change that we've made, and have been more thorough than ever in terms of the simulator running to ensure that we don't fall into a new trap, and so far, it's been a reasonable step.

"Obviously you've no idea what everyone else is doing and it is going to be quite an interesting season with how people deploy the resources between 2025 and 2026.

"In the last couple of years, we've been so focused on solving the problem that we weren't looking ahead to what future issues it would cause.

"It is like if you solve one thing, it then creates a new problem, so we've been forward thinking much more than we have done in the past. 

"But when you are changing characteristics of the car and how it is going to handle and how it is going to feel for us driving it, if you make the front stronger, it is going to take away from the rear, and if you go too far, then it is just as much of a problem.

"These are going to be fundamental changes we're going to make. We think it is going to do X, but is that going to be a problem at these races, and if so, how are we going to drive around it?"