Clueless About McLaren’s Gains, George Russell Believes Papaya Team Will Be Vying Against Red Bull at Top for the Rest of the Season

Tanish Chachra | 14/07/2023
Clueless About McLaren's Gains, George Russell Believes Papaya Team Will Be Vying Against Red Bull at Top for the Rest of the Season

McLaren had a conspicuous advantage over Mercedes in the last two races, but only in Britain did the Papya team outperform their rivals. However, George Russell is clueless about where McLaren gained so much and now even predicts that they will be vying at the top against Red Bull for the rest of the season.

During the British Grand Prix, for the first time, Red Bull, especially Max Verstappen, struggled so much to seal a win this year. Even during qualifying, the gap against McLaren was not even two-tenths of a second.

Though, the gains are new, and have only worked on the tracks with the high-speed corners. Yet, Russell believes that McLaren has done a great job and admits they were slightly better than Silver Arrows in the last two races.

McLaren would be fighting at the top; believes George Russell

Throughout the season so far, no car has consistently managed to be the second-best side; forget about challenging Red Bull. But with the recent progress by McLaren, the 25-year-old Mercedes star thinks the Papaya team would be fighting at the top.

“I see no reason why they shouldn’t be up there now,” said Russell, as per Motorsports. “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 found this much performance. It’s been quite surprising.”

Surely, the rapid progress by McLaren was surprising. A few weeks ago, they struggled to even break into the points zone, and now they are there amidst the top guns on the table. However, Lando Norris has sent a warning and told the media after the British GP not to expect much.

Pretty ‘terrible’ car in slow corners

The British Grand Prix was a big turnaround for Mclaren this season. And Norris admitted that it has been a big development for them this season. However, during the post-race press conference, he revealed that there will be a few races in the season ahead where he will have bad results.

Many will even criticize him for fizzling out. But he remarks that the current McLaren car is still pretty ‘terrible’ at the slow speed corners and could fail to perform in Hungary like they did in Silverstone.

But then again, there are races like Monza, where McLaren would again have high-speed turns, and over there, they can eye to bag some success. Nevertheless, the biggest question remains whether they can clinch a win this season as Red Bull remains undefeated.

Post Edited By: Tanish Chachra
George Russell McLaren Mercedes

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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