18/04/2025 09:00
George Russell believes McLaren will not continue to make "little
mistakes" that has put Mercedes within striking distance of the
championship leaders. After an off-weekend for Lando Norris in
Bahrain, Russell finished second, splitting the two cars behind
dominant winner Oscar Piastri. McLaren has only taken a single
one-two finish in four races despite having the strongest car in
the MCL39. Russell, who has three podiums from those four races,
believes the closeness in the championship standings is more a
reflection of 'little mistakes' being made by McLaren that he
cannot envisage carrying on for the full season. "I'd love to say
it is achievable, but you saw that in the hands of the right
driver, they do the job and are head and shoulders above everybody
else," Russell explained when pushed by RacingNews365 what it would
take to compete with McLaren on a more regular basis. "Bahrain was
probably their best-case scenario, and China was very cold, which
is their worst-case, but they still put it on pole and won the
race. "So we are finding ourselves in a position where we are 40
points behind them in the championship, probably through mistakes
of their own as opposed to pure car performance. "You could argue
that the car was capable of finishing one-two at every race this
year, and Max [Verstappen] has won a race and we've had a P2, but I
can't imagine that these little mistakes are going to continue from
them for 24 races. "Bahrain was an outlier. We all knew that
McLaren was going to take a huge step forward, and they showed how
competitive they were. Oscar just drove away into the distance.
"For me and us to be ahead of any McLaren is a huge result, but it
is still very close between ourselves, Ferrari and Red Bull. "I
think Red Bull will be back to normal this weekend, so it is
anybody's game for P2."
