Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell look back on a mixed Formula 1 season in 2023: Russell is upset about missing out on victory
The 2023 season definitely didn’t go according to plan for Mercedes, especially because they expected much more after the horror 2022 season and wanted to fight back. For the team, the last two races in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi are all about securing second place in the Constructors’ Championship ahead of Ferrari and possibly finishing second in the Drivers’ Championship with Lewis Hamilton.
After the disqualification in Austin and the failure in Brazil, however, the seven-time Formula 1 world champion is now 32 points behind Sergio Perez with 52 points still to be awarded. Hamilton is therefore realistic about his chances: “Over 30 points in two races … He would have to have two disasters and I would basically have to be second twice.”
“But for me, to be honest, it makes no difference whether I’m second or third. I think we still had an amazing year with the car we had. We never thought we would be fighting for second place in the constructors’ championship and knocking on the door of probably the most dominant car of our era. I’m grateful that we’re where we are now and that we’re having a half-decent season. Much better than last year. “
Russell is struggling with missed Australia opportunity
His Mercedes team-mate George Russell, who is 70 points behind Hamilton in the drivers’ standings, has a very different impression of the 2023 season: “It’s been a pretty poor year, to be honest, in terms of results,” he says. “For a lot of different reasons, it probably starts with the gap after Melbourne.”
Russell was then strategically in a promising position to take the adjusted lead of the Grand Prix mid-race, although it would have been questionable whether he could have held first place against Max Verstappen at the end of the race. However, a red flag then came out, which allowed the Red Bull driver to carry out a free tire change, and Russell later retired with a technical issue.
“If everything had gone the way we wanted it to, we really could have won the race,” he says. “And that might have changed everything. But sometimes you get stuck in a cycle of bad results. “
Russell self-critical: Driving mistakes didn’t help in 2023
“Last year it was the other way around, you had a good run in every race and the results came out of nowhere. Now, after 22 races, I just want to finish the season and try to get P2 for the team.”
“There are definitely areas I want to improve. But I’ve realized this year that I feel like a better rider this year compared to last year, but the results haven’t matched that and I need to understand this winter why that is. But we’ve had five retirements this year, one or possibly two of which were due to driver error. That hasn’t helped the cause either. “
Hamilton: Brazil wake-up call was not necessary
The recent surprisingly weak performance of the W14 in Brazil has once again confirmed the team’s decision to radically change the concept for 2024. When asked if there were any lessons to be learned from the Sao Paulo defeat, Hamilton said: “I don’t know if [the engineers] necessarily needed to be reminded of how much work they still have to do, but you can always take something good from a difficult weekend like that. “
“And when you have those kind of ups and downs, it puts things into perspective. I think we had that win at the end of the season last year. It was a big boost for the team, but it also maybe showed us that we’ll be better next year.”
“I’m grateful for that experience because the guys know we’re not as far along as we’d like to think. That means we have to work even harder and we just have to do a better job all round, but no one in the team is under any illusions and we know we have a steep hill to climb. “
