Positive Russell sees Mercedes being "much closer" to McLaren than expected

13:33, 27 Apr

byOlly Darcy

Mercedes driver George Russell believes that the German team is "much closer" to championship leader McLaren than originally thought after five Grands Prix in 2025.

At the Bahrain Grand Prix, Lando Norris could not find the pace required to overtake Russell in P2, with the papaya-coloured car not being as fast as expected, showing that the McLaren may not have an advantage that is comparable to Red Bull in their record-breaking 2023 season.

Before the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, there was a discussion about how narrow the gap between McLaren and Mercedes was, with the Brit likening it to the gap that Red Bull and McLaren had last campaign in 2024.

Russell pleasantly surprised by Mercedes' pace compared to McLaren

"That was quite surprising for all of us," Russell said about his P2 in Bahrain in the Jeddah paddock to several media sources, including GPblog.

"We thought he [Norris] would just slice through the pack and definitely had the pace to do so. But I think without his little penalties and obviously the overtake with Lewis, he had to give the place back. There were a lot of things that went against them that cost them probably the P2.

"But you're absolutely right in terms of where we are versus McLaren. It's much closer than McLaren were to Red Bull. But I do believe, Red Bull, it was as much them falling back to McLaren as it was McLaren developing throughout that season," continued the 27-year-old, having his say on the gap between the two leading teams last year.

Russell has made a fine start to the 2025 season, sitting P4 with 73 points after taking three podiums in five races

However, a major shake-up in the regulations for 2025 will come into play at the Spanish Grand Prix, with the 'flexi-wings' that have caused a lot of debate to be scrapped.

"Barcelona will be a really interesting race for everyone," explained Russell, intrigued as to how the teams at the top will fare with the changes in the regulations.

"Because that's when we have the clampdown on the flexi wings, and that's obviously where McLaren have excelled. Until that race, I don't really see the pecking order shifting, but that would be sort of a decisive weekend to see whether or not they take a step backwards and the pack closes up."

Read also

Next weekend, the F1 circus will roll into Florida for the Miami Grand Prix, a weekend that saw McLaren take a huge step towards Red Bull Racing last year, with Norris winning his first race in F1 thanks to the upgrades brought by the British team.

Russell knows that this is a track that suited the McLaren car perfectly: "But, clearly, they're doing something pretty spectacular with the tyres. We saw it in FP3 last week, and they were a second quicker than everybody else. That's unheard of, and I expect tracks like in Bahrain, maybe Barcelona, with high tyre deg, even Budapest, Singapore, Zandvoort, these types of circuits, we could imagine they're going to be the best.

"Maybe when we go to Vegas, it won't be the case for them. We can sneak in a victory, but the car is exceptionally solid right now from that," concluded Russell.

This article was written in collaboration with Sandy van Wijngaarden