George Russell says Mercedes still need to improve the bouncing phenomenon that has plagued their previous two cars.

Mercedes have insisted that the W15 is a major upgrade on the W14 and W13 that proved to be uncompetitive and frustrating for their two racers to drive.

Russell says the new vehicle is ‘totally different’ to its two predecessors but pointed out that it still bounces.

“I would say this year’s car is a totally different race car,” Russell said.

“To the point that the things we learned from last year in the way we were setting the car up, we will need to approach it differently this year. So, there’s a lot to learn about this.

“And it feels much closer to how a race car should feel.

“But the one area that we need to continue to work on is probably the bouncing that we’re seeing. We got caught up with a bit of bouncing [in testing] last week.

“We were pushing the car really aggressively. But as I said, we’re dealing with a totally different beast this year, whereas 2022, 2023 they were both cut from the same cloth.”