Having fallen further adrift of F1 2023's dominant team Red Bull, Mercedes soon decided sticking to its unique floor and sidepod concept was a mistake.
It started working on a significant revamp of its W14, which also tackles the front suspension and aims to make the car less "poisonous to drive" for Russell and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.
That long-awaited update arrives in time for this weekend's first European race of the season.
But Russell stressed that his new-look Mercedes won't immediately allow the Silver Arrows to make a giant leap. Instead, it is supposed to make the W14 a much more stable platform to develop and extract performance from down the line.
"Imola is a new weekend, we'll have some new bits on the car," Russell said after finishing fourth in last weekend's Miami Grand Prix, two spots ahead of Hamilton.
"Hopefully that's positive. It's not going to change the world for us in the short term but hopefully it's a step in the right direction.
"I think we can't get carried away ourselves, we need to do the talking on the track.
"We need to see how the upgrades perform when we get there. Fingers crossed they're brilliant, but we'll only know that on Friday morning."
Source: Autosport