George Russell lands bold Red Bull claim but Kimi Antonelli does not agree

George Russell believes Red Bull has become the "team to beat" in F1 following the Milton Keynes-based team's transformative Baku-spec upgrade package.

The update to the RB22 had Max Verstappen within two tenths of defeating Russell at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, before the Dutchman claimed back-to-back wins in Sepang and Singapore.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has long been adamant that the six-time constructors' champions must return to competing for victories on merit, and Verstappen's triumphs at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia and at the Marina Bay Street Circuit were just that.

Even more impressive is that Red Bull has got the RB22 performing at contrasting track profiles, which has been the key to its newly-found rich vein of form.

The juxtaposition with Mercedes is clear to see. Not only did the W17 start the campaign as comfortably the best package, but Red Bull also struggled considerably.

Now, the development of the RB22 is ominous, whilst the Silver Arrows is unsure how to gel its own recent upgrade with its once-dominant car.

After recovering from the back of the grid to ninth at the Singapore Grand Prix after taking a power unit penalty, Russell underlined the severity of the situation.

"I think the main thing for us as a team is to try and understand how we're going to find more performance, because the performance of Red Bull has been very impressive the last three weeks on three very different circuits," the British driver told media, including RacingNews365.

"Right now, they're the team to beat."

Antonelli does not quite see eye-to-eye with Russell

Such was the extent that Mercedes was left scratching its head after the round at the Sepang International Circuit; the team opted to conduct an A/B test over the weekend in Singapore.

Russell ran the old specification, which saw him dominate much of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, while Antonelli continued with the updated package.

Russell's comments about Red Bull were put to Antonelli, who finished third, with the Italian asked if he agreed or if he felt it was more a case of Mercedes not yet unlocking the potential of its own recent upgrades.

"I think, yes, probably mostly us not extracting the maximum out of the new package," the F1 drivers' championship leader responded, countering the view of his team-mate.

"Of course, Red Bull has done an incredible step forward, but as well, Max has probably been more comfortable with the car and just extracting more out of it. So, it's a combination of things.

"But for sure they've taken a good step forward. And on our side, it's just, as I said, we're just trying to understand how to extract more potential out of it because we do see the gains; we do see what it could bring..."