George Russell believes even a wing-less Mercedes couldn’t match Red Bull’s straight-line speed performance.
The superiority of the RB19 was on full display again in Baku as Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez eased ahead of polesitter Charles Leclerc once DRS was enabled in Sunday’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
What was also particularly noticeable about the Red Bull is just how quickly it gains speed when DRS is open, suddenly gaining over 20kph in mere moments compared to other cars on the grid.
Verstappen was ?? ??/? faster than Leclerc when he breezed past ? pic.twitter.com/ZIpb2Oen1h
— ESPN F1 (@ESPNF1) April 30, 2023
In contrast, Mercedes are hampered by significant drag even with the DRS open, something even the most radical solution couldn’t solve.
“We know what the speed differences [are],” Russell said post-race.
“We believe we can take the rear wing fully off and Red Bull would still be quicker than us on the straights and that’s not even a joke.
“So we don’t understand what they’re doing, but they’re clearly doing something incredible, something very, very tricky, especially with the DRS.
“Kudos to them for whatever they’ve done to achieve this straight line performance.”
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As for Russell’s race, the Briton rued a poor first lap after the Safety Car restart which saw him passed by teammate Hamilton before getting stuck behind Stroll’s Aston Martin.
“I think it was alright but following and overtaking seems pretty challenging this year for everybody and I think those first couple of laps on the race start or the Safety Car restart… I don’t know what it was like behind, but it was line astern from where we were,” he told F1TV.
“Little bit disappointing as I had a really good start, made a few positions, really good move around the Safety Car.
“Then I went deep into Turn 1, almost crashed into Fernando, lost position to Lance.. scrappy lap and then lost the position as well to Lewis.
“Ultimately ended up P8 when potentially P5 was on the cards. That’s the way the game works, we need to be quicker, and try [to] come back stronger in Miami.”
A late pit-stop did allow Russell to pick up a consolation in the bonus point for fastest lap.