The emergence of sidepods on Mercedes’ heavily updated 2023 car at Monaco won’t be a “magic trick” that blasts the struggling team back to P1. “I hope I’m proven wrong, but the sidepods won’t be the magic trick,” said Russell. “You can’t look at anything in isolation,” the source said. “It will be difficult to see just how it works at this kind of track, but I’m hopeful that it puts us a little bit closer,” said the 38-year-old. “I don’t think we’ll be fighting for a win, but hopefully it’ll be more of a fight.”. “No, it doesn’t have a bearing, because we’re still a championship-winning team,” he said.

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