The Mercedes W15 doesn’t like hotter conditions
George Russell says that his Mercedes Formula 1 team has to understand how fluctuating temperatures impact the form of the W15.
Russell recovered to eighth in Hungary after starting 17th following a miscommunication in Q1 that saw him miss the dry window at the end of the session.
Team mate Lewis Hamilton secured third after a tussle with Max Verstappen, although he couldn’t match the pace of the McLarens ahead.
At one stage in the race Russell asked if a one-stop strategy was possible, although in the end he stuck with two stops.
“That hard tyre was feeling pretty rubbish, to be honest,” he said when asked by this writer about his race. “I think that compromised us slightly having the two hards, but I’d say as a team, this was probably our least competitive race weekend.
“Obviously Lewis got on the podium. It’s five podiums in a row for us now as a team. So we’ll take the positives from that.
“But I think we just need to understand there seems to be a fluctuation in our performance based on temperature. We need to understand that.”
Regarding the team’s current form he added: “Without doubt, we’re ahead of Ferrari. I think we’re not a million miles away from Red Bull, but as I said, in these five races, we’ve been clearly the quickest in two, and we’ve been second or third fastest in the other three.
“So maybe it’s just the natural fluctuations through a season, but there definitely seems to be some correlation with temperature.”
Russell admitted that he didn’t expect to lose out to Sergio Perez, who started a place ahead after a crash in Q1.
“His pace was surprisingly good to be honest,” he said of the Mexican. “I think following his recent form, I don’t think we were expecting to be in a fight with him, but I think his pace was almost in line with Max’s pace today.
“So P7/P8, the damage was done yesterday. That’s how it should be in the sport. You make a mistake, you get punished.”
Regarding the debrief on the qualifying debacle he added: “We all took responsibility and understood what we could have done better. Ultimately, it all came down to communication.
“Probably, between us all, we probably made three errors in the course of that one session, and we just only need to avoid one of those errors, and we would comfortably gone through. It was all down to comms. So yeah, one to learn for the future.”
Adam Cooper F1 