Mercedes finds themselves heading backward with the brand new W15 challenger, which was initially supposed to perform better than its evil predecessors. Since the Bahrain test run itself, the team knew that haven’t hit the sweet spot with car development and would perhaps endure a long season.
Having said that, for the Australian Grand Prix, Mercedes devised an experimental setup that grievously backfired. During the qualifying session, George Russell once again out-qualified his seven-time champion teammate Lewis Hamilton, raising concerns of disparity. Amid speculations, Russell opened up about why his feelings about W15 are far different from those of Hamilton.
George Russell More Confident With W15 Unlike Lewis Hamilton
Ever since Lewis Hamilton announced his shocking switch to Ferrari for the 2025 season, fans have been actively raising concerns about partial treatment at Mercedes on social media. And those concerns proved to be true to a certain extent. This year, Mercedes has largely experimented with Lewis’ W15, which allowed George Russell to have a stable setup throughout the season. As a result, Russell has successfully out-qualified Hamilton on not once but three occasions. In the recent qualifying session conducted at the Australian GP, the seven-time world champion crashed out in Q2 with his lap time only good enough for a P11. On the other hand, Russell finished P7 in a much stronger position.
Meanwhile, addressing the disparity in performance of the two cars, George Russell admitted that he feels a lot of confidence in his W15. While he cannot speak for Lewis Hamilton’s experience, he has had a promising start to the season. “From my side, I feel a bit more confident and consistent with the car,” said Russell. However, despite better results than his counterpart, Russell admitted that Mercedes has a lot of ground to cover. Australian circuit has several high-speed corners where W15 tends to lose a lot of lap time. Thus, with a fully loaded car, George expects the team to work on the issue so he can have a good finish. That being said, Lewis Hamilton’s woes refuse to end. After getting out-qualified by George Russell, he confessed to having a tough time dealing with consistent setbacks. “I’m just trying to keep my head above water and just realize how it could be way worse,” Hamilton said.
Lewis Hamilton Highlights Mercedes Inconsistencies After Another Qualifying Horror
Lewis Hamilton will start the Australian GP from the back of the grid after getting crashed out in Q2 of qualifying session. While the seven time world champion had a relatively positive practice session, the lack of pace in qualifying took him by surprise. Addressing the potential causes, Hamilton highlighted W15’s inconsistencies.
“It is what it is. I think our car is on a bit of a knife edge,” said Lewis Hamilton. Indeed, the soon-to-be Ferrari driver is having a tough time extracting performance from his W15 this year. Hopefully, Lewis Hamilton will manage to score points tomorrow during what is expected to be a daunting race weekend.
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