George Russell has insisted that Mercedes won’t be in the title race this season due to their underwhelming performance in 2024.
The Silver Arrows finished 198 points behind Constructors’ Championship winners McLaren, with Russell ending the campaign 192 points adrift of Drivers’ Championship winner Max Verstappen.
And ahead of the first day of Bahrain testing, Russell said: “You always say you want to fight for a championship but, being realistic and knowing where we finished last year, that’s quite a stretch.
“But we know that if we go in every single weekend and we try to maximise every single result, who knows where that will take us. I’m just going into every race as though it’s a race we can win and seeing where that takes us over the course of the season.”
