George Russell said he is “not looking for external recognition”, when asked if he was ‘bothered’ by not yet having been mentioned in World Championship conversations.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have started the season with a win apiece for McLaren, but the Mercedes driver has been on the podium in both Australia and China, taking a front-row start in Shanghai last time out.

George Russell quizzed on F1 title prospects after double podium to start F1 2025

Russell sits nine points away from Norris at the top of the early Drivers’ Championship after two rounds, with Mercedes having started the season well.

When asked if he has not been taken into consideration for the title as he should be in his own right, the Mercedes driver explained how the team was not in a position to perform in his time with them to date, and Lewis Hamilton was the driver garnering attention for his status beforehand.

He maintains the McLaren holds an advantage over the rest of the field at this stage, however, but added “things change quickly” in Formula 1.

“I mean, ultimately, from my side, I’m just going in every single weekend trying to perform the maximum,” Russell said.

“These last three years as well, alongside Lewis, his name was always there with championships, because he’s the GOAT. But the last three years, neither of our names were there because we weren’t in the position to fight.

“So look, this season has been a great start to the year. I don’t think we could have achieved a better result than we expected, and I hope we can continue this sort of run of consistency.

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“But we know realistically, the McLarens are exceptionally strong, and I think it’s going to be challenging for anybody else to compete with them.

“But you know, we saw last year how dominant Red Bull were, and suddenly they weren’t at the end of the season, so things change quickly.”

When pressed later and asked if it bothers him to not be included in title conversations so far, the Mercedes driver replied: “I mean, not really, to be honest.

“I’m going in every single weekend, I’m a Formula 1 driver, living my dream – and it’s not what the perception is, it’s what the reality is. The reality is, if we’re going to fight for a championship this year, we need to improve.

“This year has been a great start to the season, but the same way the last three seasons have been I feel that I’ve personally performed very well.

“I had one of the strongest team-mates ever. I’m not looking for external recognition, I’m just looking to go racing every single weekend and perform and doing my job.”

With Mercedes having had their best start to a season since 2021, Russell spoke positively about how the W16 has been on track so far, but tempered that with his belief that two of the team’s rivals have not yet been fully up to speed.

“Obviously the first two races have been great. Two podiums, and we couldn’t really have hoped for much more,” he explained.

“I think we also have to be realistic. We are only two races into a long season, and I don’t think probably Ferrari and maybe Red Bull have maximised their potential as yet.

“So we don’t want to get carried away thinking this is possible week in, week out, but we definitely know that if we do the best job to our own abilities, we’ll be there in the mix.”

When asked if the performance of the Mercedes has ‘surprised’ him so far, he added: “Yeah, I think it has.

“We know in qualifying, we’ve always been pretty strong, but I think it was quite refreshing in China to see that our race pace was also pretty decent, and we were the second fastest team in China, and there were a lot of positives to take away.

“So, we go to Japan, which was probably one of our worst races last year, so it’ll be quite an interesting test to see if we have improved the car compared to this time 12 months ago.”

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