Off the back of a challenging but hugely impressive drive at the Bahrain Grand Prix, Mercedes driver George Russell has a prediction for when the team will win its first race.

But it will take a while before the Mercedes team can oust McLaren’s dominance.

When will Mercedes compete for wins in 2025?

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

As Formula 1 rockets into its fifth Grand Prix weekend of 2025, it’s clear that McLaren are the class of the field, and Mercedes driver George Russell isn’t afraid to admit it.

“I still think it’s very close between ourselves, Ferrari, and Red Bull,” the Mercedes driver told media, including PlanetF1.com, ahead of the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.

In Bahrain, he noted that “Ferrari’s middle stint was exceptionally fast, and probably if they avoided the hard tyre on the last stint, it would have been close with myself and [Charles].

“Red Bull obviously had an off weekend, but I think they’ll be back to normal this weekend.

“So I think it’s anybody’s game to go for P2.”

But according to Russell, McLaren aren’t perfect — and there’s a chance that a team like Mercedes could sneak in and snatch away strong results should it come to that.

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After being asked if he felt Mercedes could take down McLaren at the top of the World Constructors’ standings, Russell was realistic.

“I’d love to say it’s achievable, but you know, you saw with McLaren — in the hands of the right driver, they do the job, and they are head and shoulders above everybody else,” he said.

Russell noted that the team felt Bahrain’s conditions ideally suited the papaya team, but that in China — a race they expected McLaren to struggle at — the team still nabbed both pole position and a win.

“We find ourselves in a position that we’re 14 points behind in the championship through probably mistakes of [McLaren’s] as opposed to pure car performance. You could argue that that car was capable of finishing 1-2 at every race this year.”

But there is some hope. McLaren are dominant, but not quite so dominant as Red Bull was in 2023 and early 2024.

“You’re absolutely right in terms of where we are versus McLaren; it’s much closer than McLaren were to Red Bull.

But McLaren’s ability to take over the championship in 2024 “was as much Red Bull falling back to McLaren as it was McLaren developing throughout the season.”

For Russell, though, there’s hope.

“Barcelona is going to be a really interesting race for everyone, because that’s when we have the clamp-down on the flexi-wings, and that’s obviously where McLaren have excelled.

“Until that race, I don’t really see the pecking order shifting, but that will be sort of a decisive weekend to see whether or not they take a step backwards ad the pack closes up, but clearly they’re doing something very spectacular with the tyres.

“We saw it in FP3 last week; they were a second quicker than everybody else. That’s unheard of. And I expect tracks like Bahrain — maybe Barcelona [with] high tyre deg, Budapest, Singapore, Zandvoort, these types of circuits e can imagine they’re going to be the best.

“Maybe when we go to Vegas, it won’t be the case for them and we can sneak in a victory.”

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