© Jiri Krenek for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
George Russell says McLaren is “the team to beat right now”, but Mercedes is “confident we can bring some performance”.
After the first two races of the 2025 season, it seems that Mercedes is the second-fastest team, only behind McLaren.
After finishing behind the two McLaren’s at the Chinese Grand Prix, George was asked to give his thoughts on the British team’s current pace.
“I think their strength is probably in tyre management,” Russell said.
“And today we saw the one-stop was pretty comfortable. So let’s see when we go to a circuit where it’s much more overheating.
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“Like we saw in Melbourne on the Intermediate tyres or like we saw in Bahrain testing, they were even stronger.
“So they did an amazing job. These two have done a great job, and we need to keep pushing to close that gap.”
George’s team-mate Kimi Antonelli won “Driver of the Day” honours, after he managed to finish in P8 (promoted to P6 post-race, after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified) despite suffering damage to his car early on in the race.
George congratulated his team-mate, and revealed Mercedes believes they can bring more performance to their car.
“I mean, we want to get the results obviously as a team and we’re working to try and catch up to McLaren.
“They’re the team to beat right now and we’re confident we can bring some performance, but they’re really doing an amazing job.
“We need to keep on scoring. The last two races, or the three races with the Sprint as well—the result we achieved was the maximum in all three. So that gives me a lot of satisfaction.
“And if we do deliver a car that is capable of fighting McLaren, I’ve no doubt we can finish ahead, because we’re doing such a solid job as a team.
“So yeah, we need to keep on pushing,” the Briton concluded.
