Mercedes driver George Russell made a bold statement about McLaren’s competitiveness so far in the 2025 F1 season, believing the team is currently enjoying a pace advantage “bigger than Red Bull has ever had”.
The season-opening Australian Grand Prix confirmed what many had already suspected: McLaren is going into the season as the team to beat.
The team started the weekend off strong with a front row lockout in qualifying. On Sunday, Lando Norris fended off Red Bull’s Max Verstappen in the mixed conditions race, clinching victory and taking the lead in the Drivers’ standings.
Norris was able to recover even after briefly going off track, maintaining his position at the front. While hometown hero Oscar Piastri had less luck, spinning out of P2 and getting stranded on a wet patch of grass, he eventually rejoined the race, and was able to claw back two points after a last-lap overtake on Lewis Hamilton for P9.
Norris ultimately finished 0.895s ahead of Verstappen—despite, as team principal Andrea Stella later revealed, carrying floor damage. This strongly suggests that McLaren may have even greater pace to unleash under more optimal conditions.
Russell on McLaren pace advantage over Mercedes and other F1 teams
Speaking to the media in Shanghai, Russell doubled down on his earlier remarks. At this stage of the 2025 F1 season, he believes the performance gap between Mercedes and McLaren to be insurmountable.
“If you’re talking about trying to find that amount of lap time and downforce, that isn’t going to happen in a season and it’s never happened in a season,” Russell said.
“They’re clearly doing something better than the rest, they’re clearly substantially quicker than everybody when the tyres are getting hot. We saw that in the Bahrain test, we saw in sector three in qualifying, [when] they were four-tenths faster than everybody else.
“It’s the same car as they had in sector one and sector two, the only difference is the tyre overheating. We know we have room to improve, but we don’t feel like there are masses of opportunities to improve in that region, they are quite tightly controlled. So, they’re clearly doing some pretty trick, and that gap is… I mean, it’s huge.”
Ominous prediction
Russell stated that McLaren is capable of winning every single race this season if they play their cards right—achieving a level of dominance akin to Red Bull’s in 2023. However, he expressed doubt over whether they will maintain the consistency needed to achieve such a feat.
“I think their car is definitely capable of winning every race,” Russell said. “Their car should win every race, but I don’t think they will win every race this year.
“I think the gap they have on everybody this year is bigger than Red Bull has ever had.
“Yeah, I think Red Bull’s advantage was maybe three or four tenths, I think the advantage we’re seeing from McLaren right now is definitely bigger than that.
“But when Max was in that car, he was pretty reliable every single lap. He did every single run in Q3, and it was never really a question. So, hopefully, we can be there to capitalise like we were at the weekend because that should have been obviously a 1-2 for those guys.”
Optimism about Mercedes F1 2025 car drivability
“It’s definitely better, there’s no doubt about it, and I think it’s slightly easier to control,” Russell said. “Probably haven’t made the step that we were hoping but ultimately it all comes down to the lap time.
“Even when I spoke with Lando [Norris] and Oscar [Piastri] they weren’t saying that their car feels incredible to drive, it’s obviously just going around the track half a second a lap quicker than everybody else. I think that’s the nature of Formula 1, with these regs they’re never going to feel nice to drive or as nice to drive as they felt three years ago.
“So I think we’re all going to have to suck that up for another year, make the best of this tricky era that we’re all in and I think next year seems all a bit more conventional.”
On a more positive note, Russell confirmed that the Mercedes F1 2025 car is performing as expected, with no correlation issues between data and on-track car behaviour—something that hampered the team last year.
“But it’s responding as it’s supposed to. The correlation, everything, the improvements we’ve brought is all in line with our expectations and the changes we made Friday and Saturday in Melbourne did exactly what we thought and it was a step forward so that’s promising that the car is reacting as we hoped.”
Russell expecting more from Ferrari
After an underwhelming first race of the season for Ferrari, Russell believes the team has not had an opportunity to show their “true potential” yet.
“I don’t think Ferrari showed their true potential last week in Melbourne,” he admitted.
“They were one of the quickest on Friday, they looked strong in Q1 and Q2 and it just seemed to all go wrong come Q3. And then of course in the race it was very challenging, the laps that Lewis stayed out… if a safety car came out on that lap he would have ended up on the podium.
“There’s fine margins in this sport, I expect them to be right up there. I think whoever brings their A game between us, Red Bull and Ferrari will be that team who is the best of the rest.”
Russell also commented on the unpredictability of midfield performances, with both Williams drivers and Yuki Tsunoda making Q3 appearances in Melbourne. Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg was able to quietly capitalise on the chaos of mixed conditions to bag P7 in the race (outscoring Sauber’s entire F1 2024 points tally in one go) while Albon, as the lone Williams driver, briefly enjoyed an impressive P4 finish before Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli’s penalty was overturned, ultimately relegating him to P5.
“But then you have surprises like Alex [Albon] and Yuki [Tsunoda] right up there as well. I don’t see them being a major threat in the race pace but definitely I can imagine them getting in the mix in qualifiers.”
Does McLaren have a weakness?
Asked where McLaren might be vulnerable this season, Russell suggested that track temperature could play a key role.
“I think they’re going to be an advantage in the majority of tracks. They may struggle when it’s cold,” he said.
“To be honest, they seem clearly better than everybody else at cooling their tyres. We saw this last year at Singapore—very hot, street circuit, challenging, they were well ahead of everybody else. Zandvoort as well, another track of overheating, but then, in Vegas, they were nowhere.”
However, Russell clarified that he expects McLaren have also made progress in this regard.
“So I suspect, potentially on these outlier circuits, they potentially will struggle, but I’m sure they’ll have something up their sleeve to counter that because I think they’re going to be pretty aware of where they may struggle.”
