Russell sends subtle dig to Norris: "McLaren, in the hands of the right driver, does the job"

Mercedes driver George Russell is pessimistic about the chance that Mercedes have to catch up to McLaren, saying it doesn't look "achievable", while also sending a subtle dig to Lando Norris.

The British team have made a strong start to the 2025 season so far, winning three out of the four opening races, with Oscar Piastri's dominant 15-second win at the Bahrain Grand Prix highlighting their speed over the rest of the grid.

Norris leads the drivers' standings with 77 points, while his Australian teammate sits just three points behind, while Russell comes behind Max Verstappen, collecting 63 points so far.

Russell has had a very impressive start to his campaign, working well with the Mercedes car to take three podiums out of four, propelling Mercedes to 93 championship points to sit behind McLaren, who lead by 58 with 151 points.

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With the new regulations coming in for the upcoming 2026 season next year, some teams may stop developing their cars for this season to focus on the next one.

But even if that is the case, Russell still sees McLare to be too far ahead of Mercedes for them to catch up.

"I’d love to say it’s achievable, but you saw that McLaren, in the hands of the right drivers, they do the job, and they are head and shoulders above everybody else," explained Russell to several media sources in the paddock at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, including GPblog.

Of course, Norris could not make it past Russell in Bahrain, despite the Mercedes having some issues near the end of the race, while Piastri was able to race away and dominate proceedings.

"We predicted this, ahead of Bahrain, that Bahrain would probably be their best case scenario, but then we go to China with very low deg and very cold, you could argue that's their worst case scenario, and they still put it on pole and won the race," Russell continued.

"We're finding ourselves in a position that we're behind them in the championship through probably mistakes of theirs as opposed to pure car performance, and you could argue that that car was capable of finishing one, two in every race so far this year, and so far, obviously, Max has won a race, we've had a P2, and we're sort of in that fight, but I can't imagine these little mistakes are going to continue from them for 24 races," the Brit concldued.