Mercedes senior race engineer Marcus Dudley has lifted the lid on his relationship with his driver George Russell, explaining the importance of being able to trust one another, finely tuned communication and the ability to ignore toxic online abuse.
Dudley appeared on the Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show alongside Russell, Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord and trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin following the British Grand Prix. Russell finished second at his home grand prix at Silverstone after suffering a slow puncture but later capitalising on the late-race safety car.
“It’s just building trust and confidence in each other. We spend a lot of time talking to each other. But it’s trying to find performance in George, but also performance in ourselves. And the key part of our job is the communication between the two of us,” Dudley explained.
“So it’s always just trying to find those little areas where you can say, ‘That wasn’t quite right. I didn’t like the way I said that. I didn’t like that message. I really like that message.’ And then it’s just going through the data with each other and just trying to find those areas where we can find a bit more performance for George.”
Russell added: “When I raced in Formula 4, I had one race engineer who engineered three cars. And we had one mechanic per car and one chief mechanic. So there was one engineer and four mechanics for a three-car team.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
“Then, when I went into Formula 3, it was one engineer per car and two mechanics. And then it was Formula 2 that was a chief engineer, I think two engineers per car. And suddenly you get to Formula 1. And we have 25 engineers trackside.”
Online criticism and social media abuse have increased over recent years, but Dudley was clear that he wouldn’t let such a thing affect him.
“It doesn’t appear on my TikTok. You’d have to show me what that is. No, it’s not something that really features. And I just let this stuff wash over me,” he added. “I know what I need to do. I know what I need to do with George. So I just carry on with the job.”
Russell’s second place at the British Grand Prix closed the gap to his team-mate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli in the standings to 25 points.
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