George Russell wins in Canada – but remains realistic: Why he thinks he can only win the World Championship under certain conditions
George Russell gave a surprising assessment of the current World Championship situation after his victory at the Canadian Grand Prix. Despite his success and the points lost by the McLaren drivers, he remains realistic – and has clear words to say about the 2024 title fight.
“To be honest, I don’t know how Max and I are so close to the two of them,” Russell said at the press conference. The Briton is 62 points behind Oscar Piastri, Verstappen 43. “McLaren has the dominant car – that’s obvious. The only reason we’re still within reach is because we’re delivering consistently and they keep dropping points.”
Russell doesn’t mince his words: the World Championship train should already have left the station for him and Verstappen – if McLaren hadn’t ensured that the field remains reasonably open through strategic errors, incidents and inconsistent performances by the drivers themselves.
Title fight? Only under certain circumstances
Even though the victory in Canada and Lando Norris’ pointless weekend have brought him a little closer to the top in purely mathematical terms, Russell does not believe in a real title duel between equals. “I don’t see us in the title fight on our own pace – like Lando managed to do last year, mixing it up at the front with pure speed. If we repeat as many mistakes as we did today, maybe something is possible. But not with our car alone.“
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff also remains cautious about his team’s upward trend. ”We are never overconfident,“ said Wolff. ”It was a very good weekend, but the performance fluctuations are still there.”
The focus is now fully on the next race in Spielberg: “Austria will be a completely different challenge. New track, different corner characteristics – we can’t rest on our laurels after the victory in Canada.”
