Lewis Hamilton gives verdict on Mercedes car as George Russell makes worrying prediction

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton are hopeful ahead of the new season (Photo: Getty)

Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell are pleased with the progress Mercedes have made on their 2024 car.

However, the latter is still concerned that Red Bull are ‘a step ahead of everyone’ as F1 pre-season testing continues.

Russell was the first to give the Mercedes W15 a spin on Wednesday before Hamilton got behind the wheel in Bahrain on Thursday.

While it’s tough to judge exactly how fast everyone is, early indications are that the Silver Arrows are in a better place than they were this time last year, with Hamilton posting the third quickest time of the day, albeit he was over 1.1 seconds slower than Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz.

‘It was a productive day out there, we gathered lots of learnings about the W15, both in our long running and single lap work,’ the seven time champion is reported to have said after clocking in 123 laps.

‘We’ve clearly made an improvement with this year’s car and it’s much nicer to drive. We’ve still got progress to make of course. But this is a good foundation for us to build on.

‘We’ll keep our heads down and continue to work to find improvements, both over the rest of the test and into next week. I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and continuing that learning.’

The Mercedes W15 appears to be an improvement over its predecessors (Photo: Getty)

‘The car last year was really challenging to drive – Lewis and I had no confidence in it,’ Russell added.

‘We couldn’t attack the medium and high-speed corners without the rear end stepping out, and we have made a really good step in terms of the consistency of the car.

‘We can really lean on it better than we were able to in the past and this was a huge focus. Last year we saw many flaws with the W14 that the team have done a great job to rectify.’

Red Bull have been setting the pace in pre-season testing (Photo: Getty)

However, reigning champions Red Bull appear to be the clear frontrunners yet again, after Max Verstappen topped the timesheets on Wednesday, while Sergio Perez was second on Thursday.

After the first race of 2023, Russell correctly predicted that Red Bull could win almost every grand prix, and has now called them: ‘Such an impressive team.

‘Red Bull are the favourites and definitely a step ahead of everyone else. That was to be expected.

‘Red Bull are already in that sweet spot but hopefully we can close the gap. But it is going to take a lot of hard work to do it.’

For more stories like this, check our sport page.

Follow Metro Sport for the latest news on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.