Between 2014-21 the Brackley team won the constructors’ title eight times and took seven drivers’ titles between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
Its form took a dive with the W13 under the new aerodynamic regulations last year, and it has only scored one win over the last two seasons.
A series of updates has improved this year’s W14, but in recent races Russell has questioned the set-up direction, especially after bouncing became an issue at Spa.
“I think this weekend's validated that probably the direction we've taken with the set-up in recent races hasn't been the right one,” said Russell when asked by Autosport if he felt more comfortable at Spa.
“We suffered with a huge amount of bouncing today. A number of teams did, maybe not as severe as we did, still obviously a bit of a shame to see that as a sport at the pinnacle the majority of teams are still struggling with bouncing. I hope something can be solved in that regard in the future.”
Asked if it was a set-up issue that could be addressed rather than a general trend with the updates, he said: “Yeah, definitely can be tweaked. I think we're working really hard on the characteristics for next year.
“We're looking a lot at how the previous generations of cars were for Mercedes during the glory years, and using that as a bit of inspiration, as clearly that was one of the best cars in history. So that's given us some pointers on where we need to try and aim for.”
Source: Autosport