Mℱercedes are deb💦uting what they hope will be substantial upgrades in Monte Carlo, including sidepods which are similar to Red Bull’s philosophy.

Russell and Lewis Hamilton hope that Monaco wil🌃l be the start of a new chapter where the new-look W14 can again fight Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.

“Th🎐ings are working as expected, no real concerns,” Russell said about Mercedes’ upgrades.

“We brought a♌ lot to the car -🅰 aero package, new suspension and all are working as expected.

“I s🍃ee no reason why in Barcelona it won’t perform as we expected, an𒊎d we will hopefully make a small jump.

“But, equa🍌lly, I think Aston Martin has brought some upgrades as wel𝕴l and naturally the whole field moves forward.”

“Sometimes you have got t♑o stick with what you believe. And, someti꧂mes, the best course of action is building around your foundations.

 “But we wanted to rule some things out.

“Th๊e sidepods haven’t necessarily brought any additional performa꧑nce by going to a more Red Bull concept.

“The mag𒀰ic is morꦬe underneath the floor. But we still had to rule it out. We’ve done that now, now we move on.”

The revised de🗹sign to the floor was displayed when Hamilton crashed in practice, and a crane lifte♔d his car high into the air.

Toto Wolff, the Merced♑es team principal, joked that it was like a circ♉us act.

Wolff is hoping to gain further u🌳nderstanding of Mercedes’ latest upgrades in Monaco, and next week in Spain, while they continue to tweak their revised ideas.

The ‘zeropod’ strategy w🎶hich Mercedes have now ditched in favour of the approach that Red Bull use is the key difference.