F1 | Mercedes: George Russell must build trust, says his race engineer
Mercedes senior race engineer Marcus Dudley has highlighted how trust and communication are the foundations of his working relationship with George Russell. Speaking to the media, Dudley explained:
“It’s about building trust and mutual trust. We spend a lot of time talking to each other. We’re trying to find performance for George, but we’re also trying to improve ourselves as a team. The key part of our job is the communication between us.”
Dudley also explained how the team constantly refines the way it communicates in order to extract even more performance from the car and driver.
“We’re always looking for those little details where you can say, ‘That wasn’t quite right. I didn’t like the way I said that. I didn’t like that message. But I really liked that message.’ Then we go through the data together and try to identify those areas where we can find a little bit more performance for George.”
George Russell also reflected on his journey through the junior racing categories and how the level of engineering support has evolved throughout his career.
“When I was racing in Formula 4, I had one race engineer looking after three cars. We had one mechanic per car and one chief mechanic. So that was one engineer and four mechanics for a three-car team. In Formula 3, there was one engineer per car and two mechanics. In Formula 2, there was a chief engineer and, I think, two engineers per car. Then all of a sudden you arrive in Formula 1. Here we have 25 engineers at the track.”
Asked about online criticism, Dudley took a pragmatic approach.
“It doesn’t appear on my TikTok. Someone would have to show it to me. No, it’s not something that really affects me. I just let those things pass by. I know what I have to do. I know what I have to do with George. So I just keep doing my job.”
George Russell’s second-place finish at the British Grand Prix reduced the gap to teammate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli to just 25 points.
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