George Russell expresses faith in Mercedes team reeling in Ferrari and Red Bull

Mercedes driver George Russell has said that he feels confident that his team will be able to catch up to Red Bull and Ferrari this season, and potentially even overtake them, whilst also saying he’s aware it could go the other way.

Race three of the Formula 1 season takes place this weekend as the Australian Grand Prix makes a welcome return to the calendar, and Mercedes are probably set to be off of the pace that Red Bull and Ferrari set once more.

Indeed, it’s been a difficult start to the campaign for Russell and his team, as well as team-mate Lewis Hamilton, but the Briton isn’t giving up hope yet in terms of 2022 and successful results.

The former Williams driver thinks that Mercedes should be able to catch both the early pace-setters up, and he’ll just hope it doesn’t take too long to do so this year:

“We need to be in almost damage limitation mode at the moment, pick up the pieces, when there’s an opportunity, don’t throw away unnecessary points, even though it may just be for fifth or sixth or hopefully, a bit higher, and make sure we were within touching distance always.

“Then, hopefully, when the car does improve, we can come back fighting.

“It’s a very long season, I think we’ve all got confidence that if we do things right, there’s no reason why we can’t close the gap and potentially overtake [the top two teams].

“But we equally appreciate and recognise that Ferrari and Red Bull will continuously improve as well.

“So, we could close up by six-tenths [but] there’s no reason why they can’t extend by another six-tenths as well.”

Certainly, it’s been strange to see Mercedes struggling but that was always a potential impact of the new regulations and so it has proven.

With their track record, though, you’d always