Russell: No 'finger pointing, blaming' going on at Mercedes

George Russell says there is no culture of blame at Mercedes, insisting the team's troubled 2023 car wasn't signed off by a single person but "agreed upon by everybody".

Mercedes' underperformance in qualifying in the first race weekend of the season Bahrain led team boss Toto Wolff to concede that the zero side-pod concept carried over by the team from last year was fundamentally flawed and would not allow his outfit to be competitive this season.

It was an astonishing admission by the Mercedes boss, and one that many perceived as an indictment of sorts of the Brackley squad's engineering team.

But Russell says there have been no recriminations or finger pointing whatsoever behind closed doors at Brackley by Mercedes' top brass.

"I think in the conversations that have been had, I think many people accepted that these decisions weren’t the right ones," the Briton said in Jeddah last week.

"But nobody is pointing fingers and blaming them for making decisions that were made with the best intentions and with the info we had."

Russell says the ill-fated concept of Mercedes' W14 was agreed upon at every stage of the car's development process.

"I think when it comes to car concepts, when it comes to decisions of where, let’s say, a team of 2,000 people are going to be headed, it's never one person sort of directing that," he said.

"You have got your probably senior, six technical people who work together with all the knowledge we have with everybody who’s beneath them.

"The knowledge that is coming from the drivers, the work we’ve done on the simulator. And those decisions are sort of passed by and agreed upon by everybody.

"And we were aware of the concept, Lewis and I. And we did believe that this was the right direction.

"But as I said, we as a team have clearly missed something that happened over the winter. And we’re working as hard as we can to rectify that now."

• Read also: Mercedes leaving no stone unturned in changing F1 car's concept

Hamilton however says he made clear to Mercedes' engineers that he did not believe in the W14's concept, but the team opted not to listen to his grievances and warning.

"I've driven so many cars in my life so I know what a car needs," said the seven-time F1 world champion. "I know what a car doesn't need. I think it's really about accountability.

"It's about owning up and saying, 'Yeah, you know what? We didn't listen to you. It's not where it needs to be and we've got to work'."

While the damage is likely done at Mercedes regarding the early races of this season, the team is now implementing a comprehensive plan involving upgrades and a change of concept that should allow the German outfit to turn around its fortunes by the summer.

In the interim, Wolff insists his team is digging in deep to get its act together as soon as possible.

"We need to all push in the same direction, the drivers, the engineers, all the management rather than throwing in the towel," said the Austrian. "We have never done that and we will not do it.

"We just need to really dig deep and deeper than we have ever done and provide both drivers with a car they are able to fight with."

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