After Taking a Huge Leap From Williams, Mercedes’ New Found Hero George Russell Opens Up on His Taxing Lifestyle

When George Russell was growing up, he had one aim. To be able to make it through to Formula 1 and then prove his mettle at a top team. Like all of us, he too would’ve seen this from a narrower perspective. There are always two sides to every coin. The Grand Prix winner, though, has learned this the hard way.

Being with Mercedes means that Russell has the front-row tickets to potentially getting machinery that’s capable of fighting for the championship. That being said, as he’s realized, getting a seat with a front-runner such as Mercedes also has its cons, some that even have impacted the Brit’s on-track performance.

In an interview with Racer, he said, “It’s the time consumption of the things off-track. For every one day of marketing, that’s one day less in the gym, or training or resting and recovering to be in a better place for the next race. That’s definitely taken its toll on me.”

“I need to work out how I’m going to best deal with all of this because for sure, at times this year, I haven’t dealt with it that well. It’s just part of being a Mercedes driver, but that’s definitely a shock to the system.”

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The former Williams Driver may not have been unable to extract the maximum from the W13 because of his off-track commitments, but amid all this, the Brit does have one mechanical request. If fulfilled by the Silver Arrows, it could ensure he fights for the championship next year.

George Russell expects this one feature is omitted from Mercedes’ 2023 challenger

It would be an understatement to say that the W13 was a handful for both the Mercedes drivers this year. Still, Russell fared better over the course of the season than Lewis Hamilton. Mercedes needs to sort just one thing out with its package to be in with a real chance next year. Or so says Russell.

He told the media, including RacingNews365.com, “I think the facts are if you have more porpoising in the corners like we had in Abu Dhabi, it’s not improving the lap time. You need to push the car to its limit, but we were trying to avoid porpoising in the corners because the rear of the car was bouncing around and just sliding the tire.”

“So I hope that this won’t be a feature on next year’s car, but definitely on all high-speed corners it’s always just been there in the background.”

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Are Russell’s concerns well-founded? Or is it just a matter of the British driver getting used to the major leagues?