Mercedes’ Russell believes McLaren capable of dominating F1 but doubts it

SHANGHAI (AP) - Mercedes driver George Russell believes McLaren could win every race this year and suggested its pace advantage is “bigger than Red Bull has ever had.”

McLaren's Lando Norris qualified on pole position last weekend in Australia, and the next best car was a whopping 0.385 seconds behind. The best gap Red Bull ever achieved in Australia was 0.236 seconds in 2023, when it secured a F1-record 21 wins from 22 races.

But while Russell says McLaren has time in hand, he doesn't think its drivers Norris and Oscar Piastri can match Max Verstappen’s metronomic performance.

"Their car is definitely capable of winning every race," Russell said on Thursday ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend. “Their car should win every race, but I don't think they will win every race this year. So, let's see, I think the gap they have on everybody this year is bigger than Red Bull has ever had."

Russell completed the podium in Melbourne but finished more than eight seconds behind the lead pair, winner Norris and runner-up Verstappen. He says closing the gap to McLaren’s MCL39 is not possible.

“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,” he 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.”

McLaren, though, wasn’t so convinced. Piastri was puzzled by Russell’s comments, with the Australian stating, "If he wants to write off this season after the first weekend then I’ll let him do that."

Piastri added Melbourne’s Albert Park circuit exaggerated the team’s performance.

“George has come up with some funny things in the last couple of weeks, so we’ll see, but it's just one race.

"It has been a track that's been competitive for us the last couple of years, even when our car wasn’t even more dominant than a Red Bull. We’ll go to different tracks where we will struggle more. That’s for sure."

The first sprint weekend begins at Shanghai International Circuit on Friday with a single practice session at 11:30 a.m. local time (0330 GMT), followed by sprint qualifying at 3:30 p.m. (0730 GMT).