Russell on second half of season: 'Goal is still a win'

Mercedes driver George Russell has looked back on his first half of the season during the summer break and is also looking ahead to the races after the summer break. In an interview to GPblog and others, the Briton indicated that he has had a season with two halves so far, but that he is setting his sights on victory in the second half of the season.

Mixed season for Russell

With one podium finish in 12 races, George Russell is doing significantly less than teammate Lewis Hamilton. Russell is currently sixth in the drivers' championship and has had a mixed season. The young Briton attributes this partly to bad luck and partly to mistakes. Russell also sees that the latest updates to the Mercedes W14 have not quite come into their own. At Spa-Francorchamps, the Mercedes suffered from porpoising again. Despite that, the Mercedes driver is positive about the second half of the season, which kicks off with the Grand Prix at Zandvoort at the end of August.

"Season of two halves," begins Russell. "First six races I was super happy with my own personal performance, I was really strong. After that, definitely some missed opportunities." Russell is referring to mechanical bad luck in Australia, mistakes in Monaco and Canada and an unfortunate timed safety car at Silverstone. "Then it swung around recently, struggling with the car. We’ve got some ideas why that is. We pursued a set-up direction, and this weekend validated it was the wrong way," indicates Russell.

Russell still has victory in 2023 as goal

The Mercedes driver is confident that he and his team can get the car back into good shape. "That leaves me with a bit of confidence that we can turn it around in the second half of the year. But, like I said, eyes on Red Bull, we want to win a race this year, and we are still pushing like hell to achieve that," Russell said.