"Probably the best F1 car I've ever driven" - George Russell's surprising claim for Mercedes W14

George Russell has credited the W14 as the best car he has raced. The Mercedes driver shocked everyone in qualifying when he produced a laptime that was good enough to be on the front row alongside Red Bull's Max Verstappen at the Australian GP. That's a major leap for Mercedes, who had the fourth-fastest package in the first race of the season in Bahrain.

When asked about what would he attribute the progress made by Mercedes to, Russell said that it all comes down to the team's ability to put everything together and maximise the package. Crediting the W14 as the best car he's ever driven, Russell said during the post-qualifying press conference:

"I think the feeling of the car is not the limitation, to be honest. The car feels pretty decent. It's probably the best F1 car I've ever driven, or raced, sorry – probably excluding the obvious 2020 experience with Mercedes. But we're just lacking a bit of downforce. We know we've made some huge gains over the past two or three weeks in the wind tunnel, and hopefully we'll be bringing that to the track sooner rather than later."

He added:

"But, you know, this result today is going to give us a huge amount of confidence, regardless of what tomorrow brings, over the course of the next four weeks, because if we can deliver a performance like this with a car that is definitely quite a bit off the pace, it shows good promise for when we bring our first upgrade.

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"We’ve got to go for a win" - George Russell

Starting on the front row, George Russell will aim for glory. When asked what was his target for the race will be, he said,

"We've got to go for it, haven’t we? We’ve got to go for a win. Max is going to be extremely fast; there’s no hiding that. I think it’s difficult to overtake around this circuit, so the start, lap one, is going to be vital – but the Red Bull has extraordinary top speed. So, it’s going to be very difficult to fight with Max. But let's see. Let's see how we get on. We’ve got to do our own race. If the opportunity is there, we will go for it."

A win might be a step too far for George Russell in Australia, but it's impressive to see the kind of progress made by Mercedes. It will be interesting to see what they do in the race.