George Russell claims Ferrari’s race pace is worse than their qualifying pace

George Russell believes Fernando Alonso will be a greater threat in the fight for third place in the Bahrain GP compared to Ferrari. The Brit also believes the scarlet outfit has always had a good qualifying pace but end up being slower in the race.

Asked where they could outperform Ferrari and Alonso, Russell spoke to media including Sportskeeda after qualifying, saying:

“I think they’re race pace is always a little worse than their qualifying pace and with us it’s the opposite. So we’re qualifying three tenths behind them when they are probably being the fastest car in a single lap. I think we are in a good place to fight for that P3, but I think Fernando is probably more of a dark horse than Ferrari.”

Evaluating Mercedes’ performance in race trims, George Russell felt it was the opposite of Ferrari. However, he feels Alonso could pose a challenge for third place in the race in Bahrain, as they don’t know his weaknesses. As far as their own performance goes, he believes they are where they want to be, with sixth and seventh positions on the grid. The 25-year-old claimed that they found more performance overnight and are well placed for the race.

On the changes they made to his car overnight following Friday practice, George Russell said:

"Lap time performance I mean the change we made we expected to find probably a tenth and we found maybe five or six tenths. We need to understand why that is. Obviously that’s positive news but we need to understand. After FP3, we didn’t focus on understanding it, we just focused on maximising performance so that’s going to be a job for Monday."

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George Russell is aiming for a third-place podium finish in Bahrain

The Mercedes driver revealed they were able to unlock some potential from the car after making changes to it on Friday night. Aiming for third place in the race, George Russell feels the W14 is competitive enough to compete with Ferrari and Fernando Alonso. The 25-year-old stated that the team "put more emphasis" on setting up his car for the race than qualifying.

Evaluating their pace curve over the Bahrain weekend, the Mercedes driver said:

“On Friday, we expected to add a bit of performance overnight but the performance we added probably exceeded expectations. Ultimately the car is feeling nicer to drive so we are in a much better starting place than we are compared to W13 and now we are focusing on global performance rather than spending three quarters of a year problem solving. I think we are in a good place to fight tomorrow for P3 probably, with Ferrari and Fernando. I think we’ve put in emphasis especially on my side of the garage, we put more emphasis on setting up the car for the race tomorrow. So it’s all good.”

Elaborating on the changes they made to the car, George Russell added:

"We tried something this morning, we tried a different rear wing but ultimately the one that we had ahead of this weekend was the right one for us, which we did our qualifying on. As I said we expected to find a little bit of performance but we found a lot of performance. But ultimately still we are not where we want to be but we have a good starting point . We can allow the team to focus on that performance, rather than spending the three quarters of the year problem solving.”

While Mercedes were outpaced by Aston Martin in the qualifying session, George Russell feels they have started off better than they did with the W13 in 2022. As it stands, the 25-year-old will start the Bahrain GP in sixth place followed by Lewis Hamilton in seventh.