George Russell delivers home truths to Mercedes with fears of falling ‘behind’ rival teams

Russell excited to get started with Mercedes

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George Russell completed 77 laps on day two of testing Barcelona to add to his 66 on Wednesday with promising signs from both Mercedes drivers. But the 24-year-old acknowledges his team are a long way off being challengers for the title given the impressive performances from both Ferrari and McLaren.

Russell recorded the fourth-quickest lap on both day one and day two at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with his time on Thursday being just 0.9s slower than leader Charles Leclerc.

The Brit signed for Mercedes at the end of last season having excelled at Williams for the past three years.

He is set to line up alongside Lewis Hamilton, who was unfortunate not to win a record-eighth title last season.

But despite Hamilton being favourite to win the Drivers’ Championship in the 2022 season, Mercedes performed poorly on their first outing of the season.

Russell acknowledges that each team is running different programmes throughout the week, but he’s keeping a close eye on the developments at Ferrari and McLaren.

“We’re seeing some interesting things out there, that’s what testing is for,” Russell said.

“Some teams are looking pretty fast. A red team and an orange team in particular look very, very competitive. So let’s see what tomorrow brings and what we can do between this test and Bahrain.”

McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo posted superb lap times in both sessions, whilst Carlos Sainz seriously impressed for Ferrari on Wednesday.

Yet despite finding the testing intriguing, Russell admitted that the two early pacesetters were ahead of Mercedes. However, the Brit had full confidence his team would iron out the issues ahead of the season opener in Bahrain next month.

“Certainly not ahead, [I’m] pretty sure of that,” Russell said of his team.

“They seem to have things well under control and they look very strong, low fuel and high fuel, and with the tyre management.

“Who knows? We all know that we’re on different programmes, but we definitely know from the average of all of the different runs, we’re behind them at the moment.

“Let’s wait and see. The championship is not won in Barcelona in winter testing. But it’s certainly been an intriguing two days so far.”

The new season starts on March 20 in Bahrain.

And the British duo will be looking to have won Mercedes a ninth-consecutive Constructors’ Championship by the time 2023 arrives.

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