George Russell and Mercedes set sights on catching Max Verstappen and Red Bull after the 2023 F1 Spanish GP

George Russell and Mercedes have set their sights on catching Max Verstappen and Red Bull after the team's double podium finish in the 2023 F1 Spanish GP. The team turned things around in Barcelona with a stunning overall performance that saw both drivers make their way through the field to secure a podium.

What was even more impressive was how both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton held a comfortable pace advantage over the likes of Ferrari and Aston Martin. It was the first double podium of the season for the team as the Mercedes upgrade package appeared to work wonders for the team.

Looking back at the race, George Russell was extremely satisfied with the result and set his sights on catching Max Verstappen and Red Bull at the front. As quoted by F1.com, he said:

“We’ve always been strong in Barcelona but the upgrades worked as expected, which is really promising to see and thanks a huge amount to everybody who put so much effort into this because it’s truly paying off. I was very disappointed last night with the qualifying result but it’s proof that you just need to keep on believing and today was a new day, new opportunities, went out there, ticked all the boxes, the car was fast, good overtakes and really enjoyable race.”

“I’m really happy with the progress we’ve made but at the same time we’ve got work to do, our sights are set on victory and we’ve got work to do to catch Max [Verstappen]," he added.

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George Russell talks about the whole 'Is it raining?' team radio

George Russell also opened up about the whole 'Is it raining?' team radio during the race where he mistook his sweat as a drop of rain. Referring to the incident, he said:

“I had a bit of an issue when I started the race because I didn’t put all my hair in my balaclava so I had hair dangling down and it was sort of flickering in front of my eyes, so that was annoying"

“And then as I started to sweat, it was dripping down my hair and every time I was braking, it was jumping onto the visor on the inside," he added. "It took me about four laps to realise what was going on, when I wiped my visor, and the water didn’t disappear. I put two and two together and worked it out.”

Russell secured his first podium of the season in Barcelona and will be hoping that this is the start of many more in the year.