Ever since George Russell got a seat with Mercedes in 2022, the once-dominant team failed to build a title-contending car. What’s worse? It has fallen to the fourth-best team in the grid. In the recent Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Mercedes’ W-14 never came close to challenging the powerful RB19. But after Friday’s practice session, Russell says ‘there’s no reason’ why Mercedes can’t be the second-best team.

In the first practice session of the Miami Grand Prix, Russell led Lewis Hamilton to a Mercedes one-two. The young Briton beat Hamilton by 0.212 seconds and was 0.424secs up on Verstappen.

Speaking about the same, Russell said in his statements after the practice session: “There’s no reason why we can’t be ahead of Ferrari and Aston Martin. That’s our goal. I think we’ve seen in the first four races that Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes are pretty close. It would be pretty exciting if these teams were fighting for the win or pole position.”

“It’s nice that all three teams are so close because you can tell when you do something right, you get your reward by getting ahead of the other 2 teams. We know we have the potential, we saw it in practice 1. We saw it at the beginning of the second practice session, we just need to bring things together.”

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However, Friday afternoon saw Mercedes in difficulties again.

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It was a bumpy start for Mercedes in Miami. Russell’s Friday practice started with steering issues, which forced him to dive back into the pits. However, he worked past them and put Mercedes on top of the timing sheets in FP1. But the second practice ended in disappointment as problems returned again. In contrast to a one-two finish in FP1, the Mercedes duo fell down to seventh and 15th places, respectively. However, Russell is still positive going into the Miami Grand Prix. 

Speaking about why he lost performance in the second practice session, Russell said, as quoted by Motorsport.com, “The car changed when I switched from medium to soft in practice 2. I felt strong on my lap on my middle tyre, I was on a good lap, if I could complete it, I could have been in the top 4. Then we switched to soft tires and the car stopped working as I wanted. I think we understand a little bit why this is happening and luckily we have a time tonight when we can make changes to the car.”

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Meanwhile, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said, “The car has some goodness, it is just very tricky to unlock it. When the drivers have confidence, they can go quick. It is on a razor’s edge. This morning we seemed to be in a sweet spot. I don’t think we can extrapolate from this. We ran later than everybody else but at least it looked more encouraging than Baku.”

Watch this story: Are Lewis Hamilton & Mercedes Exaggerating Their F1 Struggles in 2023?

Do you think Mercedes can beat Aston Martin and Ferrari to become the second-best in the Miami Grand Prix?