Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff heaped praise on George Russell after he finished on the podium for the second time in as many races in Shanghai.
Russell split the McLaren drivers on the grid and kept in touch with them for much of the race on his way to finishing third. Wolff said there was nothing more he could have got out of his car.“The word solid doesn’t give it any justice because he just drove a race that was faultless,” Wolff told Viaplay. “He extracted the max of the car and the tyres. For me that was a 10 out of 10 drive.”
Wolff said “a podium is a realistic best-case based on the terms” due to the quality of the competition. “It was not only the McLarens, but Max [Verstappen] you can never discount, and the Ferrari so it’s good.”
Mercedes aren’t quite fast enough to win on merit yet, Wolff believes. “The ambition is to win, but we don’t feel any entitlement at the moment,” he said. “We’re not yet good enough, we’re second in the championship.”
Russell said he “fully maximised every time on track” over the weekend. “I was really happy with qualifying yesterday, getting in between the McLarens.”
He made an early pit stop to switch to hard tyres which allowed him to briefly jump ahead of Lando Norris. However the McLaren driver re-passed him again soon afterwards.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
Russell hoped the McLaren drivers would opt for a two-stop strategy but was disappointed. “The race today was really strong,” he said. “We called it pretty early about the one-stop and it was a bit frustrating it was so [obvious] in the end because I was hoping those guys ahead would have gone onto the two-stop.
“We know at the moment we’re trying our best to catch McLaren, these guys are doing an amazing job. For us to end up quite a bit ahead of Max and the Ferraris right now, that’s a great result.”
He said there was little he could do to keep Norris behind at the start due to the way Piastri positioned his car.
“Obviously I lost out to Lando at the first corner. Oscar did a really good job at defending and it’s always a bit difficult when it’s such a high-speed first corner. I thought I could sneak underneath him and he covered me pretty well.
“But for sure, if we qualified behind Max and the Ferraris yesterday, I don’t think we would have been standing on the podium today. So I think that was pretty crucial.”
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories - and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2025 Chinese Grand Prix
- Red Bull reassure Verstappen over ‘when we’ll have a winning car again’ in meeting
- Mercedes explain impact of Antonelli’s floor damage on his Chinese GP performance
- “I gave a lot of lap time away in that first stint”: Verstappen’s full Chinese GP radio
- Stats: Chinese Grand Prix saw most disqualifications in an F1 race for 21 years
- Even the best driver on the grid needs a team mate to push them – Norris
BasCB (@bascb)
24th March 2025, 7:38
Ha, sure Toto. I think that if we ask Russel, he’d probably have a few things to criticize. But It’s not hard to agree with both that Mercedes / Russel did get just about the maximum of what was on the table out of this weekend.
Wer
24th March 2025, 11:34
“I think that if we ask Russel, he’d probably have a few things to criticize.”
Which stands in no contradiction to rating his drive as 10 out of 10.
Will Wood (@willwood)
24th March 2025, 8:01
I’ll be the judge of that…
S Arkazam
24th March 2025, 8:26
;)
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
24th March 2025, 9:04
@willwood Pretty impressive performance, might earn a 7 ;)
Ferdi
24th March 2025, 11:43
Hahaha, nice!
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
24th March 2025, 12:00
good one :-) I’m guessing he’s not getting a 10
An Sionnach
24th March 2025, 8:59
Solid does describe it. Qualify well and then keep out of trouble. He might as well keep this up as long as the car isn’t fit to duke it out with the McLarens. Max seemed to be doing this too, but ended up a lot further behind after the start.
An Sionnach
24th March 2025, 10:27
If the choice is between point collecting and do-or-die, the former generally returns the world champion. The gulf seems to big for George to take the title, though. Even if Piastri takes it to Lando, nobody else will get a look in if they’re finishing first and second all the time. Reliability and civil war within the leading team has helped the best of the rest to take the title in the past.
It’s a good approach from George. Stay calm, collect the points and a high championship position would be a bonus.
Frank
24th March 2025, 11:48
Maybe the budget cap has rendered my reasoning invalid, but it almost seems as if McLaren realised there was a long-sought title for grabs with all teams shifting focus to new regulations next year.
Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull (well, Verstappen) seem to have converged whilst McLaren made an extra leap. Or did they just improve on race day operations so that they are more effective in converting their advantage into wins?
An Sionnach
24th March 2025, 13:42
I think the main teams all made some improvements. Some of the other teams (like Williams) kept the chassis and made some other changes. I think the problem is that McLaren was already ahead on average. If they can improve on the driving and operations side, they should do it. This being F1, it might be cheaper for the chasing pack to find out what McLaren is doing and get it banned than to improve their own cars, although there may well be nothing to ban. I’d expect they’ll try a little of everything – improve a little everywhere.
Red Bull doesn’t have a driver problem with Max, but they would be in trouble without him as they’d be without a car, a driver and a designer to make a new car that might attract a driver. Next year they may be without an engine, either (or one that’s any good)!
Patrick (@paeschli)
24th March 2025, 15:44
If Verstappen leaves they are stuck with Lawson and Tsunoda (or God forbid, Perez) driving what will now be the slowest car on the grid.
Edvaldo
24th March 2025, 16:29
Russell is in his prime, Mercedes is organized enough as a team, and the car is good enough for him to hang in there with the leaders until late into the season, when who knows what might happen. Piastri and Norris may butt heads, who knows.
Max is doing the same, while Ferrari already looks off after just two races.
Applebook
24th March 2025, 22:00
Also, at least for the first half of the season, Kimi is no threat. All that he has to do is keep it on the track and show decent speed.
Riccard
24th March 2025, 18:30
Wolff is exaggerating, but I’d like to celebrate that he got through an entire conversation without saying anything negative and while simply praising the work of his own team. More of the same, please!
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
25th March 2025, 21:59
Wolff positions himself behind Russell, knives out.
A shame McLaren resigned Oscar, Russell is better than both of their drivers.