After stunning performances from McLaren at both the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone, securing their first podium of the season during the latter, Mercedes driver George Russell sees no reason that McLaren can’t keep this up for the rest of the season. 

“I see no reason why they [McLaren] shouldn’t be up there now,” said Russell. “We’ve come from the Red Bull Ring, which is a very different circuit from Silverstone. And they were a small step ahead of us on both occasions. 

“So I don’t know how they’ve found this much performance. It’s been quite surprising. We don’t tend to focus too much on our competitors. We just need to keep focusing on ourselves.

“Yes, it gives us inspiration that it can be possible, but we need to try and turn it up and we need to find more performance and quick.”

Lewis Hamilton echoed his teammate’s statement but was also happy to see other teams getting better and diversifying the grid. 

“… this is the first time in a long time, and [McLaren] deserved to have the performance they have, so we’ve got to do a better job. They’ve now done a better job than us.

“What I would say is that this is one of the most exciting times I think we’ve seen in the sport, where we’re finally starting to see the regs pull people closer. 

“You’ve seen the Williams was up there with [Alex] Albon. You’ve seen the McLarens now, the Astons, so we have a lot of teams getting very, very close – small gaps within qualifying which is exactly what we need. So I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the year evolve.”