George Russell: Mercedes ‘can’t fight’ Max Verstappen despite 1-2 in Bahrain practice

George Russell disagrees with the notion that ‘Mercedes are back’ in terms of fighting for wins and championships despite a strong showing in F1 practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Mercedes ended second practice on Thursday at top of the timesheets with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Russell.

It was an impressive showing from Mercedes, which left Bahrain 12 months ago with the fourth-fastest car.

However, it did appear that Max Verstappen had the advantage during the race simulations in the latter half of FP2.

Russell was quick to play Mercedes’ form down with a clear deficit to Verstappen still apparent on heavy fuel.

“We need to sit down and understand where this increase in performance came from. Is it a one off? Can we sustain this? What we need to do to fight for a serious position on Sunday,” he said.

“As I said, our aim is to try and focus and fight for victory. After testing, Max looked a long way out in front but now that gap has reduced. He’s still out in front. I think he’s still got a healthy margin to the others rather than just a ridiculous margin.

“By no means does this mean we’re back or we can fight with them just yet but as I said it's a really solid day.”

Russell conceded Mercedes didn’t know why their qualifying pace “looked really strong” after making some changes to the car setup following pre-season testing.

“We’re not going to get carried away with ourselves,” he added. “The qualifying pace looked really strong. We still need to try and understand why it was so good. We made some changes from the test and it exceeded our expectations but ultimately the long run pace, which is where it all happens, Max was still ahead of us.

“It was very close with Fernando, Lando and the Ferraris, and Lewis and I were very similar. We’ve got a real fight on our hands in race pace.

“As I said, we’re really pleased with the day. The car is performing really well but we’re not getting carried away.”