Russell adamant over Mercedes: We're not making the same mistakes again

George Russell is adamant that Mercedes will not go down the wrongdevelopment direction again, after making mistakes with their 2023challenger. The Briton admitted their W14 was a more difficult carto drive this year compared to the troubled W13, having failed towin a race for the first time since the 2011 season. Teammate LewisHamilton admitted that he knew Mercedes were in trouble, when hesaw they elected to stick with the zero sidepod design approach atthe beginning of the season. Mercedes eventually switched to a moreconventional downwash design, mimicking the Red Bull RB19 which won21 of the 22 races in 2023. Russell expects the Silver Arrows willnot make the same mistakes for 2024, as they look to close the gapto their old title rivals. "Last year's was definitely a trickiercar to drive. We made some big improvements but what has caught usout this year has stemmed from the winter development," Russelltold media, including RacingNews365 . "We took the wrong direction.We made some mistakes and that was evident as soon as we hit thetrack in Bahrain. Going into our third year now, I'm confidentwe're not going to make those same mistakes. "We've got some goodgains over this winter we're finding at the moment. But maybe it'sall relative and we don't know what our rivals are going to bring."Russell: There is small differences between our driving stylesRussell matched Hamilton in head-to-head performances this year at11 a piece, while the latter was the faster of the two but by aminimal margin: the seven-time world champion was averaged just0.017 seconds faster. When asked if there is much of a differencebetween their driving style, Russell responded: "There's definitelysmall differences. But the underlying limitations that we have areexactly the same and what we're chasing is exactly the same. "F1 isso complex with these tyres that it does take a lot to change yourdriving style, how you approach a corner, how you attack thecorner, to have a substantial impact for good or bad on the tyres."We definitely have some driving style differences, which favour mea certain circuits and that favour him at others."