With four race wins in the 2024 season, Mercedes gave a glimpse of the potential they were marching toward. The progress showed that the engineers in Brackley were developing a better understanding of the ground effect concept. Despite that, the team walked into the new season with the underdog tag.
With two podiums in as many Grands Prix weekends so far, George Russell has instilled a newfound confidence in team principal Toto Wolff. The Austrian, in turn, is looking to inject that same confidence in the rest of the team.
Wolff, however, is wary of dubbing the Silver Arrows as title contenders just yet but admits they’re not far from McLaren. “I wouldn’t say we’re in the running yet, but we’re not far away either,” FormulaPassion quoted him as saying.
The team boss believes the gap to McLaren has now reduced to just a couple of tenths of a second. Given how much the field has bunched up, the gap might look big. But Wolff is still elated because that gap at the Australian GP was a full second.
“We were clearly the second fastest team in Shanghai, which is another solid result. George’s driving was an A+, and I rarely give that grade. But he got the most out of the car. So far, I think there’s reason to be excited about the future,” Wolff added.
To recap, George Russell has:
• Longest active streak of Top 5 finishes in F1 (7)
• Longest active streak of Q3 appearances in F1 (13)
• Two straight podiums to start 2025
• Top 5 result in every competitive session to start 2025He’s been in top form. pic.twitter.com/ozoeFIcm9X
— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) April 1, 2025
The circus now moves on to Japan, where the colder track temperatures will suit McLaren, Red Bull, and possibly Mercedes as well. There is, however, the rain factor that can play spoilsport and hand Max Verstappen a crucial advantage.
The Dutchman has made a name for himself under wet conditions and wouldn’t let the opportunity to score big points or bag a win slip away too easily.
Andrew Shovlin sets the target for McLaren
In Mercedes’ recent debrief video, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin gave a positive review of the car, glad with its uniform performance on different circuits. However, he admitted that McLaren was the team to beat, while Verstappen was extracting every bit of performance from the car, and that Ferrari is in the mix as well.
“What we’ve also seen, though, is that McLaren are probably the team to beat. Max is pretty quick. Ferrari certainly don’t look like they’re far behind, and they’ve had a bit of bad luck in the last few races,” Shovlin said.
Giving a crucial insight, Shovlin admitted the team was developing the car to close the gap to McLaren. Given that the teams are desperate to start working on the 2026 cars early, the comment proved that Mercedes is planning for a longer fight in 2025.
