While waiting for Lewis Hamilton to come out of his silence, Mercedes can rely on George Russell.
Yesterday the young driver from King’s Lynn started work on the Brackley simulator to take the measurements of the W13, the Star’s ground-effect single-seater which, according to rumors, should go back to being silver, giving up the black that characterized the Mercedes in the last two F1 seasons.
For Russell, who had already made contact with the men of the team in recent days, it was the first real day of work 2022, after driving the W12 in the Abu Dhabi tests: the 24-year-old Englishman arrives at the top team after three hard seasons at Williams, earning promotion to the Constructors’ world champion team eight years in a row.
George is certainly not a new face in Brackley given that in 2020 he had disputed the Sakhir GP with the W11 to replace Hamilton suffering from COVID-19. Russell on his Mercedes debut had qualified in the front row with a gap of just 26 thousandths of a gap from poleman, Valtteri Bottas. Immediately taking the lead, the Englishman had driven the race to a sensationally wrong pit stop and a puncture that relegated him to the ninth final place, which earned him the first championship points.
After the long apprenticeship, the Briton wants to reap the fruits of his work and has no intention of starting a season subordinated to hep champion Hamilton. Yesterday, therefore, was important to kick off a cycle in which he hopes to become one of the protagonists of the 2022 world championship which starts with ground-effect single-seaters.
The Brackley technicians were able to evaluate George’s approach to the simulator with the waiting W13: it is said a lot of good about the new power unit which seems to have recovered the power gap caused by the E10 petrol, while some doubts remain on the part frame that is affected by the regulatory revolution. The car is being gestated in Brackley and, as in all teams, questions arise about the technical choices made, as there are no reliable comparative data on the competition.
#Russell #Mercedes #simulator #discovers #W13