George Russell, interviewed by BBC Sport, predicted that McLaren will be ahead of the others at least in the early races of the season.
We’ve entered the first race week of 2025. Formula 1 is set to arrive in Australia for the first event of a season that promises to be very tight and competitive, but for now, everyone seems to be pointing to McLaren as the favorite. The Papaya team showed its strength during the three-day testing, and the challengers appear to be at least a couple of tenths behind in terms of race pace.
George Russell, winner of two Grand Prix last season, also singled out McLaren as the team to beat, one that is currently difficult to approach for the start of this season. These are the British driver’s words: “I don’t think any of us currently have a car potentially capable of beating McLaren. McLaren, without a doubt, seems by far the strongest. Especially their race pace seems quite impressive.”
The Mercedes driver then added: “There are definitely improvements across the whole car, no doubt about that. Of course, there’s always something to work on. Last year, we had some issues with low-speed understeer. There are still signs of that problem that we’re working to fix, and we think we have some things in the pipeline to try to solve these issues. But definitely, the car is a bit more sorted.”