Russell admits surprise at pace of Mercedes’ car as he predicts ‘interesting test’ for team in Japan

George Russell has admitted that the pace of Mercedes’ car so far in 2025 has come as something of a surprise, though the Briton cautioned that the squad “don’t want to get carried away” following their promising performance across the opening two races.

The Silver Arrows have enjoyed their strongest start to a season season 2021 this year, with Russell scoring back-to-back podiums in Australia and China, while rookie team mate Kimi Antonelli has also been consistently in the points, putting the outfit in second place of the Teams’ standings behind leaders McLaren.

While Russell is confident that the team can continue to be “in the mix”, the 27-year-old also acknowledged ahead of the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix that there is likely to be more to come from their rivals.

“Obviously the first two races have been great – two podiums – and we couldn’t really have hoped for much more,” said Russell. “I think we also have to be realistic.

SHANGHAI, CHINA - MARCH 23: George Russell of Great Britain driving the (63) Mercedes AMG Petronas — Russell has been surprised by the race pace of the W16 so far

“We are only two races into a long season and I don’t think probably Ferrari and maybe Red Bull have maximised their potential as yet, so we don’t want to get carried away thinking this is possible week in, week out. But we definitely know that if we do the best job to our own abilities, we’ll be there in the mix.”

Asked if the pace of the W16 had surprised him so far, Russell responded: “Yeah, I think it has. We know in Qualifying we’ve always been pretty strong, but I think it was quite refreshing in China to see that our race pace was also pretty decent and we were the second fastest team in China.

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“There were a lot of positives to take away. We go to Japan, which was probably one of our worst races last year, so it’ll be quite an interesting test to see if we’ve improved the car compared to this time 12 months ago.”

The British driver added: “This season it’s been a great start to the year. I don’t think we could have achieved a better result than we expected, and I hope we can continue this sort of run of consistency.

“But we know realistically the McLarens are exceptionally strong, and I think it’s going to be challenging for anybody else to compete with them. But you know, we saw last year how dominant Red Bull were, and suddenly they weren’t at the end of the season. So yeah, things change quickly.”

‘I’ve been learning massively’ – Antonelli looking forward to racing Mercedes on ‘new track’ Suzuka

On the other side of the garage, Antonelli has set out how he will approach Round 3 at Suzuka as he continues to build his experience in F1.

“In the past two weekends, I’ve been learning massively, especially Qualifying, and the goal this weekend is to try to maximise the Qualifying performance, especially tyre warm-up, trying to put them in the right window,” the Italian explained.

“But the approach is going to be quite similar. It’s a new track for me. It is also back to a normal weekend, so I can build up to the weekend, but I want to start off as well in a good rhythm because this track is not an easy one and you need the right confidence, so it’s about finding the right balance with how much you push without overdoing too much in order not to hurt your confidence.”

Like Russell, Antonelli remains mindful of the challenge posed by other teams but sounded a positive note about how Mercedes have performed so far.

“I think teams like Ferrari and Red Bull didn’t really show their true potential, but I think us, we are working with good consistency, we are working really well with George and the team and we are being able to find the right balance with the car both in Qualifying and in the race,” the 18-year-old reflected.

“At the moment, we are kind of maximising our potential. Of course, we want to do better but I think, so far, we are going pretty well.”