George Russell makes unbelievable McLaren-Red Bull comparison claim

George Russell has claimed that McLaren's current advantage is "bigger than Red Bull ever had" in its record-breaking 2023 F1 season. 

McLaren started the new season with victory in the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday after Lando Norris survived late pressure from Max Verstappen. 

Oscar Piastri had been in second for the majority of the race before an unfortunate spin ended his podium chances at Albert Park. 

The Woking-based team, though, was dominant in Australia, notably holding a four-tenths of a second advantage over Verstappen in qualifying. 

It has led to fears, raised by Russell, that McLaren could dominate this season and perhaps eclipse Red Bull's astonishing 2023 campaign of 21 victories.

"I think their car is definitely capable of winning every race," Russell told select media including RacingNews365.

"Their car should win every race but I don’t think they will win every race this year. Let’s see.

"The gap they have this year on everybody is bigger than Red Bull has ever had. But when Max was in that [2023] car he was pretty reliable every single lap he did, every single run in Q3, throughout qualifying, never really a question.

"Hopefully we can be there to capitalise like we were at the [Melbourne] weekend, as that should have been a one-two for those guys."

McLaren untouchable

During the season-opener in Melbourne, McLaren's obvious advantage was in the final sector. At times, Norris and Piastri found four-tenths on its rivals through the final corners. 

This was due to McLaren being the only team not to suffer from its tyres overheating, an area Russell recognises as a current weakness of Mercedes but also other rivals. 

Ahead of this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, Russell does not see McLaren being beaten.

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

"They’re clearly doing something better than the rest, clearly substantially quicker than everybody when the tyres are getting hot.

"We saw that in the Bahrain test. We saw it in sector three in [Melbourne] qualifying, they were four-tenths faster than everyone else in sector three. Same car they had in sectors one and two, the only difference is the tyre overheating.

"There’s room for us to improve but…and we know we have room to improve but we don’t feel like there are masses of opportunities to improve in that region. It’s quite tightly controlled. So they’re clearly doing something pretty trick and that gap is huge."