George Russell delivers sobering McLaren warning

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."