“Probably one of my best weekends in F1 in terms of overall performance, so I’m very happy, we maximized every moment on track,” said George Russell after the Chinese Grand Prix, adding another podium to his Australian result from the previous weekend.
However, despite the two podiums, Mercedes’ British driver is perhaps the most overlooked pilot at the start of this season, far from the spotlight of the big stories in early 2025. From the internal battle between McLaren, Ferrari’s ups and downs, and Max Verstappen struggling with an indecipherable Red Bull, George Russell has been the constant who has best exploited certain situations.
After the race, Toto Wolff didn’t hesitate to emphasize this aspect, giving him a perfect 10 for his ability to extract the maximum: “George had a 10-out-of-10 race and I rarely give out 10s. But he got the maximum today. Often, George has been underappreciated, and I keep saying that’s not fair because he’s one of the top three drivers.”
But where does this 10-out-of-10 race come from? The first piece was laid on Saturday, with an unexpected second place, but one built also on some car setup choices. A fairly low setup, good potential on the straights, and overall, good traction out of some very specific corners. But that’s not all.
The W16 is a more balanced and predictable car compared to its predecessor, an aspect that has allowed the drivers to more easily find the limit compared to the W15, which was often twitchy and very complex to drive. However, it still has limits, as seen on Saturday, with a fluctuating qualifying result, at least until they completely changed their approach, producing a front-row lap.
Although McLaren remains objectively out of reach, starting so far ahead played a key role in securing Mercedes’ second podium of the season, placing them ahead of both Ferraris, considered the toughest rival for the race, based on their performance in the sprint. Clearly, this helped manage the race from a different perspective, especially when Ferrari stopped Hamilton.
Having a cushion of around three seconds over the seven-time world champion, who at that point was struggling more than his teammate to find pace, allowed them to manage one of the main doubts of the race, namely the potential of the hard tire during the undercut phase, primarily due to concerns about how severe the graining could be.
As expected, in the first stint on the medium tire, graining was present but not as aggressive as on Saturday, with Russell himself being one of the first to realize that the race would likely be one-stop rather than two, as everyone initially expected.
For this reason, the English driver had suggested extending the stint with the medium tire, during a phase where the graining was starting to clear up, allowing him to lower his times and pull away from the two Ferraris. However, Mercedes read the race well, calling Russell in immediately for the hard tire, which had proven to be the best compound so far, based on data from those who had already used it.
Although it may seem paradoxical, in reality, the choice to pit immediately rather than extend the stint was the correct one. This was demonstrated by Alex Albon’s race, who, despite planning a fuel-saving first half, paid a heavy price for those few extra laps on the medium tire, hoping to extend the stint, effectively excluding him from the battle with Esteban Ocon.
In fact, the race followed a very similar pattern to what was seen in Abu Dhabi 2024, where a two-stop race was expected, but the hard tire’s durability over the long run benefited those who stopped first. For this reason, extending the first stint in China, as suggested by both George Russell and Charles Leclerc, would have been counterproductive.
However, there is a big difference between the Mercedes driver and the Ferrari driver. At that point, the Red car was still leaning more towards a two-stop strategy, despite Leclerc’s indications, and exiting into traffic, he had to attack in the first laps of his second stint, the most critical ones for the tires.
Although the hard compound proved to be solid and with limited wear, far beyond initial expectations, being gentle in the tire’s introduction phase would still have provided an advantage in the long run, especially since the drivers would have still encountered graining to clear up during the rest of the race.
On this front, George Russell played his cards wisely, adopting a much more conservative approach in the first phase of his second stint compared to the Monegasque, one of the reasons why the gap closed so quickly after the second stop, giving the impression that Leclerc had much more pace to show. The most interesting aspect, however, is that once reunited, the Mercedes driver began to lower his times significantly, especially in traction.
What worried Mercedes’ engineers, in fact, was not so much (and only) the front tire graining but particularly the rear tire overheating. As the race turned into a one-stop strategy, thermal degradation became a more significant factor than it had been on Saturday, and that’s why the Brackley team took precautions, advising George Russell to reduce sliding.
Clearly, the W16’s exit performance from corner 12, highlighted by Charles Leclerc, was one of the key elements that prevented him from attacking, but it actually fits into a much broader context. If you look at Russell’s lap times for the rest of the race, they were much more consistent in terms of progression compared to Charels Leclerc’s, who suffered from a more aggressive tire introduction and the front-end damage, which was felt more over the long distance than immediately.
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