George Russell claims that Mercedes’ W13 car got “well over a second” faster compared to its performance at the Bahrain GP.
Mercedes had a difficult start to the season as the Silver Arrows were forced to deal with porpoising and performance swings of the W13 car. Mercedes brought updates to address the issues and later on improved their results.
Mercedes achieved a 1-2 finish at Interlagos last Sunday. Race winner Russell evaluated the improvement Mercedes had made over the year.
“Definitely well over a second [quicker than in Bahrain], I would say,” he commented.
“I think in Bahrain I qualified ninth. At Imola, both Lewis [Hamilton] and I were out in Q2.
“We were fighting with Alfa Romeo and Haas at the start of the season and well over a second behind Ferrari, who were looking the most dominant team at the time.
“I think it really goes to show the improvements we’ve made.”
He added: “We lost so much time trying to solve the porpoising issues and that really hurt our development.
“I think that’s why we’re seeing such a jump in performance in these past eight races.
“It’s because we’re no longer focusing on the porpoising and we’re now focused on bringing performance.”
