Following a dominant showing from Red Bull and a difficult weekend for Mercedes in Bahrain, George Russell believes a Red Bull championship victory is inevitable. Russell showed his patience however and is willing to make sacrifices with the goal of getting back to the front.
“Red Bull have got this championship sewn up.”
Red Bull and Max Verstappen were all but untouchable in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, starting and finishing the race first and second. Verstappen eventually came home over 35 seconds ahead of the next non Red Bull driver.
Following the Grand Prix, Mercedes’ George Russell seemed disheartened with his 7th place finish, losing out to the Aston Martin of Lance Stroll in the latter half of the race. The young British driver admits he sees a Red Bull championship victory as a foregone conclusion after just the opening race.
“Red Bull have got this championship sewn up,” Russell said, following the race. “I don’t think anybody’s going to be fighting with them this year and I expect them to win.
“They should win every single race this season is my bet. With the performance they’ve got, I don’t see anybody challenging. They’ve got it easy at the moment, they can do what they like.”
He continued to say he expects Red Bullto only face competition on Saturday’s, citing Ferrari’s impressive qualifying pace, but believes their car is essentially untouchable in race spec.
“They might not get on pole all of the time because we know that Ferrari are very competitive in qualifying,” he said, “but when it comes to race pace I think they’re in a very strong position.”
“Clearly we are a long way behind.”
Discussing his own team’s position, a somewhat downtrodden Russell admitted he cannot see Mercedes competing with Red Bull this season. He did show his optimistic side however, admitting he is happy to sacrifice races at the beginning of the year in order to potentially compete for victories in the latter half of the season.
Despite this, he acknowledged it may be 2024 before we see a competitive Mercedes challenging at the sharp end of the grid once again. Reluctantly, Russell seemed to accept this possibility, looking at the bigger picture rather than the team’s immediate struggles.
“We’re here to win and we obviously want to optimise every single result,” said Russell. “But if you give me a choice between fighting and having a chance to win races whenever that is, versus slow progress and never having that chance, you obviously choose taking those victories.
“So if we’ve got to sacrifice some races or part of a season to give ourselves a chance to get a car that can fight, whether it’s the second half of the season or even if it’s looking towards next year, maybe that’s what we’re going to have to do because clearly we are a long way behind.”
