Australian Grand Prix: George Russell says Mercedes advantage is ‘perfect storm’ as Lando Norris criticizes new cars

Russell finished the day ahead of his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, and 0.785 seconds ahead of the first non-Mercedes driver, Red Bull’s Isak Haggar.

“We knew we had a fast car underneath us. I don’t think we expected it to be that fast, but Max wasn’t there,” Russell said.

“We made him our number one competitor, and if you look at his speed difference historically over the last seven years compared to his teammate, you would expect him to be in the mix as well.

“It was a bit of a perfect storm.”

There may be a significant element of truth to that, but there is no doubt that Mercedes has the fastest car and that it will take some beating for a while.

McLaren also have a Mercedes engine but their fastest driver, Oscar Piastri, who is fifth, was more than 0.8 seconds slower than Russell.

Most of McLaren’s loss of time was on the long ‘straight’ between turns six and nine at Albert Park. Mercedes was simply able to deploy more power there – because it arrived at Turn 6 with its battery more charged.

Team principal Andrea Stella said the Mercedes was also quicker in most corners but added: “How do you exploit these power units to the best of their potential, and that takes a very long time.”

Why hasn’t McLaren been able to compete in this way yet? Because Mercedes are the work team. They built the engine, so we now have a more complete understanding of how it works.

But Mercedes’ advantage is not limited only to managing the power unit. They also built a very good car.

“Mercedes is fast in corners, not just on straights,” Stella said. “There are a few corners we can compete with, but overall it is faster in sections with limited grip.”

But he added that this may partly have to do with the use of the engine.

“What we see is that the more we maximize the power unit, somehow everything works better and you go faster in the corners as well,” he said.