George Russell has said that it’ll be close between Mercedes, Ferrari and Verstappen for the 2025 F1 Bahrain GP, as McLaren remain a “step ahead”.
Russell finished third in the second free practice session of the weekend, but he was outpaced by more than half a second by McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who topped the timesheets. Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris took the top position earlier in the day during the first practice session.
That second session was better representative of the kind of result we may see during Qualifying and the race itself, since both of those sessions will take place in similar cool evening conditions.
However, Russell admitted that Mercedes is aiming for the “next best” position behind McLaren following their dominant performance in practice.
Russell: McLaren “a step ahead” of the competition at F1 Bahrain GP
Speaking after the second practice session, Russell stated that his team had expected such a performance from McLaren:
“We expected McLaren to be a step ahead here and we saw that today. Long way ahead in the middle sector where tyres are overheating so we know we’ve got a bit of work to do but I think we’re in a position fighting for the next best.”
While Russell joined the two papaya drivers in the top three, he made clear that things will be much closer slightly further down the grid:
“I think the Ferraris were on course for a pretty good lap, I think they had a bit of a bad last sector but it’s going to be close between ourselves, Ferrari and Max [Verstappen] but we just never know to be honest.”
However, Russell did point out how the race in Bahrain will differ to the opening three races of the season:
“I definitely feel, unlike the last three races, this won’t be dominated by Qualifying, this weekend is going to be determined by race pace, tyre [degradation],” he said.
“So of course you want to have a good Qualifying but the race is where the action will be.”
Antonelli not far off the pace
Russell’s teammate Kimi Antonelli recorded a respectable finish of fifth during FP2, returning to action after a mechanical issue in FP1 caused him to only register three laps before the afternoon session.
“Unfortunately I had an intercooler issue with the car so I had to stop and couldn’t drive for the rest of the session which obviously was a shame because you don’t want to be wasting any laps,” he said.
Following his P5 finish in the afternoon session, Antonelli proved to be in higher spirits: “I think FP2 was quite positive. Single lap it felt quite good, I made a big mistake in sector one but overall I felt pretty good in the car.
“Long run was quite tricky, the situation was completely different compared to what we had in testing. So I needed to adapt, but overall I think, despite the issue in FP1, was still a positive day.”
