Formula 1
Russell: No reason McLaren not up there for rest of F1 season
George Russell believes that McLaren could be in the fight at the front of the Formula 1 field for the rest of the 2023 season.
Adam Cooper
Edited: Jul 14, 2023, 2:39 AM
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After Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri qualified second and third for the British GP, Russell rightly predicted after qualifying that McLaren also had good race pace, and that the orange cars would not fade on Sunday.
Norris eventually finished second having held off Russell's team-mate Lewis Hamilton, while Oscar Piastri took fourth after losing out to Hamilton by pitting before the safety car.
Russell pointed out that McLaren had already shown impressive speed at the previous race in Austria and admitted that Mercedes has to find some performance.
"I see no reason why they shouldn't be up there now,” he said of the Woking team. “We've come from Red Bull Ring, which is a very different circuit to Silverstone. And they were a small step ahead of us on both occasions.
“So I don't know how they're found this much performance. It's been quite surprising. We don't tend to focus too much on our competitors. We just need to keep focusing on ourselves.
“Yes, it gives us inspiration that it can be possible, but we need to try and turn it up and we need to find more performance and quick."
Lando Norris, McLaren, 2nd position, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes-AMG, 3rd position, celebrate on the podium
Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images
Hamilton conceded that McLaren had a faster car than Mercedes in both the Austrian and British events.
“Yes, 100% and last week,” he said. “But this is the first time in a long time, and they deserved to have the performance they have, so we've got to do a better job. They've now done a better job than us.”
Hamilton welcomed the fact that more teams are now in the mix: “What I would say is that this is one of the most exciting times I think we've seen in the sport, where we're finally starting to see the regs pull people closer.
“You've seen the Williams was up there with [Alex] Albon. You've seen the McLarens now, the Astons, so we have a lot of teams getting very, very close - small gaps within qualifying which is exactly what we need. So I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the year evolve.”
Read Also:
- McLaren says even more gains to come from latest F1 upgrade package
- The 11 changes that have helped turn the McLaren into an F1 rocketship
- Norris: McLaren F1 car still “pretty terrible” in low speed
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