George Russell has echoed the claim made by Toto Wolff that Mercedes have a car again which can compete for the title.
The Silver Arrows have been the dominant force on the grid over the course of the last decade and won eight constructors' titles in a row. But that extraordinary run came to an end last year as they made mistakes when designing their W13 car, and spent much of the 2022 season out of the running for victories.
Mercedes managed one win on a brilliant weekend in Brazil, but that was as good as it got for them. But both team principal Wolff and now driver Russell have expressed their belief that they will be back in the fight for the championship this time around.
He told reporters in Bahrain: "In terms of feeling, [the car] feels like a step in the right direction. But, as we know in this sport, it's not just about feeling – it's about lap time and I think, comparing to this time 12 months ago, things are running a lot smoother.
"Obviously, when we were here last year there were a lot of alarm bells ringing with the porpoising. We were unsure how to solve it and were a bit lost. The car characteristics were not good, so I think things have been running much smoother and reliability has been good so far to allow us to do the test programme.
"For sure, we've got things that we need to improve with the car. But I would say, generally speaking, we are where we would expect to be at this time of year.
"You definitely head into the season believing. At every point of my career, I've always gone in believing, but you need to take a rational view once you get to the track and you learn. I think we definitely believe, eventually, we will have a car capable of getting in that fight.
"Whether we're going to have that next weekend in Bahrain, that might be a bit of a stretch. [Red Bull] look very strong, the car is looking stable and very strong, and obviously Max [Verstappen] is performing really well so it will be a stretch for next week.
"But there's no reason why, eventually, we can't get there at some point this year. We've always seen the strength of Mercedes and their development rate, so the belief is definitely there."
