Red Bull “embarrassed” by their pace advantage and “holding back” to avoid Formula 1 intervening, George Russell claims.
The Milton Keynes-based outfit continued their 100% winning start to 2023 as Max Verstappen claimed his second victory of the season in Australia last Sunday.
While the gaps have been relatively small between Red Bull and the rest in qualifying, it has been the race pace that has been particularly telling, with their drivers a second per lap faster than anyone else at times.
And Russell believes that is more representative of the true advantage the RB19 currently holds over its rivals.
“For sure they’re holding back,” the Mercedes driver told the BBC’s Chequered Flag podcast.
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“I think they are almost embarrassed to show their full potential because the faster they seem, the more that the sport is going to try and hold them back somehow.
“I think realistically they probably have a seven-tenths advantage over the rest of the field.
“I don’t know what the pace difference looks like at the moment but Max has got no reason to be pushing it nor has Red Bull.
“They’ve done a really great job to be fair to them. We can’t take that away, and we clearly have to up our game.”
Verstappen was quick to dispel Russell’s claim of sandbagging, however…
“I mean, there’s nothing really they can do,” he said on the same podcast as to how F1 or the FIA could slow Red Bull down.
“We just try to do the best we can with the development of the car, but it’s also about pace management because we didn’t really know – I think no one really knew – how long that hard tyre would last [in Australia].
“So it’s about just bringing it home because we had a bit of pace I think over the others, and there’s no need to try and gain half a second a lap and destroy your tyres to the end because you never know, a Safety Car can happen, red flags, like we had today. So yeah, it’s not necessary to risk all that.”
Ahead of the Melbourne race weekend, Carlos Sainz also admitted Ferrari’s tricky start to 2023 was “one of the toughest moments” he has experienced because of Red Bull’s superiority.
“Since 2021, we’ve been on the way up, we went from finishing P6 to finishing P3, [then] there was the regulation change that allowed us to do a massive step in 2022,” he elaborated.
“And then, this year, we expected at least to find ourselves in a similar position but unfortunately there’s a team named Red Bull that has killed the opposition with a car that is clearly superior to everyone else.
“If you look at Ferrari, we are there with Mercedes, we are not too far from Aston Martin in race pace, but there’s one team that has nailed it and this puts us a bit on the back foot again. But, at least we know, I think we know, where we got it wrong.
“It’s very clear to us where the weaknesses of our car lie, where the strengths of the Red Bull are. And now the whole team is pushing in the same direction, trying to cut that deficit.”
Sainz though isn’t complaining about Red Bull’s current domination…
“I’ve never been a fan of being concerned with one team dominating, because if they’ve done such a good job, they deserve it,” he continued.
“I mean, I wish it was us. Then I would get really angry if people were concerned that we are walking over Formula 1.”
