Ellison called Russell’s victory a “Christmas present”

James Allison, Technical Director of the Mercedes team, commented on the key results of the Austrian Grand Prix, which ended with George Russell’s victory, and also spoke about the preparations for the home race at Silverstone.

James Ellison: “We were very happy with the win in Austria, because it was more of a Christmas present than a traditional win where your car crosses the line first because of its superior speed. But this success was a great reward for the whole team for their hard work.

We gradually climbed to higher positions and were able to be in the right place to take advantage of the situation when the two leaders were no longer in contention for the victory. We have not yet reached the level we want to be at, but such a high result was very pleasing to everyone.

Furthermore, after the sprint and qualifying we only made very minor changes to the settings, slightly adjusting the angles of attack of the wings, trying to optimise the balance of the car…

To say we were nervous in the last laps of the race will not give the full extent of our experience. We believed that George was riding at a pace that was sufficient to win, but we also knew that Oscar Piastri was capable of showing good speed.

Furthermore, we saw that George was not particularly fast on hard tyres at the beginning of that segment, and we didn’t know what this was about: was he waiting, saving tyres to attack closer to the finish, or was that all he was capable of? We even tried to find out something from him a lap before Verstappen and Norris collided.

When they cleared the way for George to win and he took the lead, Piastri was behind him, the troublemaker who showed impressive pace for a few laps. Fortunately, George was also able to improve and take the race to victory. It was only when he crossed the finish line that we felt real relief!”

Lewis Hamilton took 4th place in Austria, but the speed of the seven-time world champion’s car was affected by the fact that his W15 was damaged.

“The damage that the Lewis machine sustained resulted in a significant reduction in efficiency,” Ellison explained. – This happened due to the fact that he was driving on the gravel side of the road – this can easily happen at the Red Bull Ring, all you have to do is exit the corner a little wider, just half a wheel.

The gravel will fly out from under the wheel with the speed of a bullet, and such stones will pierce the side pontoon, damaging both the body parts and the edges of the bottom. The loss of speed was equivalent to 0.2 seconds per lap, and with such a density of results as now, this is immediately noticeable. It was no surprise that Lewis could no longer drive the same pace as George.

At the same time he was able to keep up his task quite well, remained calm and eventually finished fourth.”

Of course, Ellison shared his expectations for the home race at Silverstone: “Our whole team will be at the circuit, the staff who normally work at the grassroots will be in the stands, which is great because they will be our most passionate fans. Many of them have never been to a Grand Prix before and will be seeing our cars for the first time at this classic circuit.

“The technology will really be put to the test at Silverstone and it will be interesting to see if we can continue the progress we have made in several races in a row recently. Will we be able to close the gap to the cars of the two teams that are still a few tenths ahead of us? We also need to see how effective the small new products that we will be presenting at Silverstone will be.”