George Russell’s belief that McLaren could win every race in the F1 2025 season has been addressed by leading team bosses.

With McLaren having won both races so far this year, Mercedes’ George Russell said the extent of their advantage is such that the Woking-based squad could win every race this year.

Fred Vasseur: McLaren’s advantage smaller than Red Bull’s last year

Last year, Red Bull started the F1 2024 championship in dominant fashion. Continuing where they’d left off in 2023, winning 22 of 23 races, Red Bull kicked off the season with two 1-2 finishes and another one in Japan.

But Red Bull’s season derailed as the development path led the RB20 into troubled waters.

12 months on, it’s McLaren who have kicked off the final year of the current regulations in dominant fashion, with Lando Norris winning in Australia and Oscar Piastri in China.

Speaking over the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, Mercedes’ George Russell suggested McLaren could capitalise on an apparent inherent pace advantage with the MCL39 and deliver what Red Bull could not by winning every race on the calendar.

“I think Red Bull’s advantage was maybe three or four-tenths. I think the advantage we’re seeing from McLaren right now is definitely bigger than that,” he told the media at the Chinese Grand Prix.

“If you’re talking about trying to find that amount of lap time and downforce, that isn’t going to happen in a season, and it’s never happened in a season.

“They’re clearly doing something better than the rest. They’re clearly substantially quicker than everybody when the tyres are getting hot. We saw that in the Bahrain test, we saw in Sector 3 in qualifying – they were about four-tenths faster than everybody else in Sector 3 – it’s the same car as they had in Sector 1 and Sector 2.

“The only difference is the tyre overheating. So room for us to improve, and we know we have room to improve, but we don’t feel like there are masses of opportunities to improve in that region – they are quite tightly controlled.

“They’re clearly doing some pretty trick, and that gap is… I mean, it’s huge.”

But that sentiment is not shared by Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur, who said McLaren is far more within reach than Red Bull was in the early stages of last season.

“I think the gap is much, much, much lower than the gap between Red Bull and the other teams last year,” he said.

“I don’t want to say something stupid, but I had a look at the sprint race of 2024 in China that Max started from P6. He won the race by 16 seconds.

“It was done, and then things are changing.

“The gap with McLaren is the gap that we had with Red Bull last year when they did 1-2s in the first two races.

“If I come back to the press conference of the second race last year, I had the question whether I think that they will be champion in June.

“That’s why we have to take it with a piece of salt. I’m sure that they are in good shape and they are doing well. The pace is strong, this is clear, and I think they are a step ahead. But it’s not the end of the championship.”

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With the same question being asked of Russell’s team boss Toto Wolff, about whether McLaren is that far ahead of the rest of the field, the Austrian laughed.

“You’ve got to rattle the cage a little bit and see what’s falling out, is that how you say it in English?” he said.

“I think, based on Melbourne, that was a valid statement. Today, we’re closer, and we need to analyse, after a few race weekends, where we are.

“Because, on Saturday, you would have said Ferrari’s dominance is back, and the greatest ever. Look at the Sunday race; and their pace was probably more on the underwhelming side.

“So we need to not oscillate between exuberance and depression, literally from day to day, but, after a few races, find a baseline and say this is what it is now.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner believes it’s far too early to make an assessment, pointing to the example of how McLaren themselves turned their competitive level around very quickly after a tough start to 2024.

“Never say never. The one thing McLaren proved to everybody last year is that you can have a troubled start to the year but still be very competitive,” he said, when asked if the Constructors’ Championship is out of reach for his team.

“We’re eight points behind in the Drivers’ [Championship]. The Constructors’ championship is a very tough ask, and we need to make significant progress with the car in order to even challenge for that.

“McLarens are the benchmark. They’ve won the first two races. That’s who we have to be. That’s what we’ve got to be. And we’re working very hard, collectively, as a team.”

With Ferrari preventing McLaren from a complete clean sweep of victories as Lewis Hamilton claimed the Sprint race win in China, Vasseur said the natural ebb and flow of the teams’ relative development will play a huge part in the outcome for this year.

“We are improving. In the last part of the [2024] season, [McLaren] was probably a step behind,” he said.

“We have to stay calm with this and be focused on ourselves. We have a lot of positives from the weekend, starting from the pole and win for Lewis [in the Sprint] and the race pace of Charles [on Sunday].

“But we have also negatives in that it’s much more difficult to understand the race of Lewis today, or the pace in qualifying [Saturday] afternoon. We are still on the edge to get the best from the car and from the team, and we have to improve on this area.”

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