George Russell says Mercedes ‘have a lot of work to do’ to avoid painful Canadian Grand Prix

Mercedes look set to struggle once again in Montreal this weekend

George Russell is the only driver to have finished in the top five at every race so far this season. (Getty Images)

George Russell says Mercedes still “have a lot of work to do” to catch up to the frontrunning teams in Formula 1 after struggling in the opening practice sessions for the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Silver Arrows have been the fastest team in Formula 1 every season since 2014, but are off the pace of frontrunners Ferrari and Red Bull this season, and Russell ended up only seventh fastest at the end of the second round of practice running in Montreal on Friday evening.

Mercedes have been struggling after transitioning to F1’s new set of technical regulations, which have undergone their biggest revision in a generation. A return to ground effect aerodynamics for the first time since the 1980s has brought with it the unexpected aerodynamic quirk known as porpoising, which is the name given to the phenomenon whereby cars bounce up and down violently at high speeds on long straights.

Toto Wolff’s team have struggled with the problem more than any other, and despite governing body the FIA issuing a newtechnical directive ahead of the race in Canada designed to curb it, the problem is persisting.

The FIA has released a new technical directive designed to release the intensity of porpoising in F1, but Mercedes are continuing to struggle with the problem in North America. For Russell, the stiffness of the team’s W13 car is a significant issue.

“It was fun to drive around this circuit again, but ultimately our performance wasn’t where we wanted it to be compared to the top teams, where we want to be,” the 24-year-old told Sky Sports F1. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s still very bumpy to be honest, the stiffness of these cars is just brutal. Here you really feel the stiffness, and it’s something we’re trying to tackle.

“We can’t run the kerbs like we used to. We have got the car as soft as we can but clearly we need to make some improvements. In FP2 it was the biggest deviation [on setup] me and Lewis have had, we went in vastly different directions, so we need to find a happy medium. We have a race car that can put us third fastest, but we need to finish ahead of the midfield in qualifying.”

Russell’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton slammed the performance of the car after practice, saying it is “getting worse, getting more and more unhappy the more we do to it.”