© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
George Russell says the team “made some changes from the test and it exceeded our expectations”, and they need to “understand where this increase in performance has come from”.
After Mercedes surprised everybody by topping the Bahrain Grand Prix Free Practice 2, George Russell warned it’s not time to start celebrating just yet.
“We’re not going to get carried away with ourselves,” the Briton said.
“The qualifying pace looked really strong. We still need to try and understand why it was so good.
“We made some changes from the test and it exceeded our expectations, but ultimately the long run pace – which is where it all happens – Max [Verstappen] was still ahead of us.
“It was very close with Fernando [Alonso], with Lando [Norris], and the Ferraris, and Lewis and I were very similar as well, so we’ve got a real fight on our hands in race pace.
If you like SilverArrows.Net, consider supporting us by buying us a coffee!
“But as I said, we’re really pleased with the day, the car’s performing really well, but we’re not going to get carried away just with the timesheets just yet.”
George added the team is yet to understand what caused such an improvement in performance from pre-season testing to now.
“We need to sit down and understand where this increase in performance has come from, whether it’s a one-off, whether we can sustain this, and what we need to do to fight for a serious position on [Saturday in the race]. As I said, our aim is to try and focus and fight for victory.
“After testing, Max looked a long way out in front. Now that gap has reduced, but he’s still out in front, and I think he’s still got a healthy margin to the others rather than just a ridiculous margin to the others, so by no means does this mean we’re back or we can fight with them just yet.
“But as I said, really, really solid day,” Russell concluded.
