Mercedes star George Russell suspects Red Bull is sandbagging to hide their true potential. The Silver Arrows driver believes this because he thinks the defending champions want to avoid being axed by the FIA.
Talking to BBC’s Chequered Flag podcast, Russell said the defending champions are surely holding back. He added that the Milton-Keynes-based team is embarrassed to show their full potential as the FIA fear lurks on.
All over Down Under 🏁 What a Sunday at the #AusGP 🏆 pic.twitter.com/vDjfLqfXrm
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 2, 2023
The former Williams driver also said Red Bull is sandbagging because “the faster they seem, the more that the sport is going to try and hold them back somehow.” Admittedly, FIA might step in to negate the advantage if the gap is too huge.
Max Verstappen pulled off yet another win to establish the Austrian team as undefeated in 2023. With two wins from him and the other one by Sergio Perez, the Milton-Keynes-based team is a league above everyone else.
Russell believes Red Bull has a seven-tenth pace advantage
The Mercedes driver thinks the defending champions have over seven-tenths advantages over the rest of the field. Which, in fact, is monstrous given the advancement they made in the winter.
Russell said on this, “I don’t know what the pace difference looks like at the moment but Max has got no reason to be pushing it nor has Red Bull.” Despite this, the 25-year-old credited the Austrian team for their brilliant work.
About last night 🫶 #AusGP 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/XWMCFi3AO7
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 3, 2023
The Silver Arrows pilot said the Milton-Keynes-based team had done a great job. Even though they had a huge advantage over the rest of the field, it was fair in the end. They can neither take away that from them. All they needed to do was to up their game, he concluded.
Helmut Marko believes rivals have closed the gap
The Red Bull taskmaster has recently opened up on his team’s rivals. He believes the rivals have made enough gains recently and have almost closed the gap after underestimating them recently.
Talking to Sky Sports Germany, he said, “You can see how close it is when a little thing doesn’t work out because we’re always said to have a superiority that only exists when everything is running smoothly.”
He further went on to say that rivals like Aston Martin, Mercedes, and Ferrari have made enough gains. This was evident when the Silver Arrows qualified in P2 and P3 in Melbourne.
