George Russell feels Mercedes' drop in form in Austria was 'circuit-dependent' 

George Russell explained how Mercedes' W14 is heavily track-dependent after experiencing a dip in performance at the 2023 F1 Austrian GP.

Lewis Hamilton and Russell finished eighth and seventh, respectively. Surprisingly, there were no major differences between the cars from Canada or Spain, where Mercedes had decent pace.

Speaking to Sky Sports about the differences in performance based on tracks, George Russell explained how he and his team were slightly confused as to why the race pace difference was so massive from track to track.

“I’m sure we will get to the bottom of it, but we still have the same car from two races ago in Barcelona when we were flying so the only thing that is different is the tires, something we need to understand. It definitely doesn’t feel how we want it to, the car is moving around a lot, a little bit worse than all of the other circuits but the pace was substantially worse than we were expecting. We need to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

George Russell added that the upgrades Mercedes will be bringing to Silverstone will once again be a step in the right direction. He later deduced that the Mercedes W14 is heavily track-dependent since there has been no difference between Canada and Spain.

Russell hopes for a better race at the British GP since the nature of the track is similar to the previous two.

“(Silverstone upgrades) are another step in the right direction it’s just another step. It’s clearly circuit dependent because we were nowhere here and with the same car we were good in Canada and fast in Barcelona. That bodes well for Silverstone because Silverstone is more in line with Barcelona than it is this circuit,” Russell added.

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George Russell suggests a fascinating change to the new sprint race format

Since the sprint race format is new to Formula 1, there is still a lot of discussion as to how it can be changed to make it better.

Mercedes driver George Russell has his own views on mandating the drivers' race on soft tires during a sprint race. While speaking to Sky F1, he explained how the soft tires will have more degradation, which will force drivers and teams to switch up their strategies even though the race is extremely short.

“I think the sprint race is an interesting one – I still feel like it’s too short. I think in normal circumstances, just dry conditions, it would have been a pretty boring race," Russell said.

"I think something like, you know, mandating the soft tire for the sprint race and, you know, a bit more tire deg – you’ve got to think about it more, a bit more action. At the moment, you’ll put the medium [on], you’re just flat out the whole race in a DRS train, and there would have been nothing you could do,” he continued.

There are still four more sprint race weekends left in the 2023 F1 season. The FIA could still make some changes to the new format.