Toto Wolff has again heaped praise on George Russell while telling Lewis Hamilton his luck will soon change as the Mercedes team principal explained the latter' struggles this season.
The Mercedes drivers head to Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend in different moods, Russell buoyant after top five finishes in the opening five races of the 2022 Formula One season but Hamilton frustrated after some misfortune has contributed to a 23-point gap between his 24-year-old team-mate and the seven-times world champion.
In the last race in Miami - won by Max Verstappen - Russell overtook Hamilton in the late stages after a late safety car worked in his favour. And Wolff said: “Considering George's start position, it was a great recovery drive, helped by when the Safety Car was deployed.
“But the timing was unfortunate for Lewis who was strong all weekend and on course to score P5 without the neutralisation of the race. I’ve no doubt that over the course of the season, a little luck will eventually go his way.” Russell and Hamilton finished fifth and sixth respectively in Miami but were still some way off the pace of the Ferraris and Red Bulls, who filled the top four slots, with Max Verstappen claiming a third win of the season.
Wolff said: “With the third quickest car underneath us, we extracted the maximum points possible in Miami. During Friday practice, the car showed flashes of its true potential. We continued experimenting with set-up, fitted some new components and that has provided us with answers and indications of which direction to go in.”
And the Mercedes team principal believes that direction is most definitely forwards, despite Hamilton being repeatedly pessimistic about his prospects. Wolff explained: “A huge amount of hard work has been going on in the factories to unpick the data from Miami and turn it into improvements for Barcelona. Having run there in winter testing, albeit with a car that has evolved a lot since then, it will be a good place to correlate the information we have on the current car and we're hopeful that we'll make another step forward.
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“The track itself is a good all-rounder, so it really puts every aspect of the car to the test. It's never been a great track for overtaking so it'll be interesting to see how these new-shape 2022 F1 cars impact the on-track spectacle in Spain. In basketball terms, we head to Barcelona at the end of the first quarter of the game. We know that once we translate the learnings we've made into track performance, there's still a lot of the game left to play.”
And Wolff clearly trusts Hamilton and Russell to help lead a Mercedes fightback, starting with the Spanish Grand Prix. He added: “I’m happy how George has settled in - he has integrated very well and it’s almost as though he has been here forever. And I’m really happy about the two of them, how they interact and how respectful they are of each other.”
