Meet Mr. consistency in the 2025 F1-season: George Russell

George Russell has entered the 2025 F1 season as the only driver aside from Norris to have finished in the top five in all four opening rounds. This weekend saw the pinnacle of motorsport tackle a night race in the desert of Sakhir, Bahrain. With yet another podium secured at the Bahrain International Circuit, Russell’s stellar performances have put him in P4 in the championship standings after the Bahrain GP, how will he and Mercedes stack up against the competition in the remaining twenty Grands Prix this year?

Russell after finishing P3 in Bahrain, photo by Clive Rose retrieved from GettyImages.

The 27-year-old Brit has entered 2025 in the role of team leader at Mercedes, in his first three seasons with the German team Russell was always second to the great Lewis Hamilton, a seven-time F1 world champion. After Hamilton’s Ferrari move, Russell had to display being worthy of stepping up to the task of ‘replacing’ his old teammate. After podium finishes in Australia and China and a fifth place in Japan, another unexpectedly great weekend came about for the Mercedes driver.

Rundown of Russell’s Bahrain GP

McLaren were said to be the dominant force ahead of the Grand Prix weekend in the Middle East. In Free Practice, indeed, this was the case. The McLarens topped all sessions ahead of qualifying and were even the first and second fastest during Free Practice 2 and 3. Qualifying came about on Saturday, however, and saw a dominant Piastri take pole position in his McLaren. A shocker to everyone came about when the Mercedes of Russell crossed the line in P2, where he remained as McLaren’s Lando Norris could not get a quick lap together.

Drama struck the Mercedes squad after Qualifying as both Russell and his rookie teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli received a one place grid drop. This was all due to a mistake by their team, as they left their pit boxes too early when Qualifying was neutralized due to a crash by Esteban Ocon from Haas.

Race day came about on Sunday and Russell immediately moved back up into second place off the start. His start was so good that he even almost overtook polesitter Piastri. Coming around for the start of lap 2 saw the Mercedes slotting in behind the race leader, after that his opportunity at winning had disappeared. Off into the distance went Piastri. Behind the dominant McLaren Russell had quite the eventful race, managing pressure from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. After a safety car interruption, the order shifted somewhat in favor of the Ferrari cars. The Maranello team saw their cars right behind George Russell momentarily at the restart, before Lando Norris came back through on both.

George Russell under attack from Charles Leclerc at the Bahrain Grand Prix, retrieved from XPB Images.

Into the final stages of the race, it would be Russell on fading soft tires who had to hold off Norris in a far quicker car. Adding to this already tricky situation, the Mercedes driver had all sorts of issues to deal with, various technical systems were failing causing braking problems and non-functioning displays on his steering wheel. Norris had a shot, but his fellow Briton placed his car to perfection and maintained in P2. After that, there was no chance for Lando to come back into contention.

These issues also caused some trouble with the transponder of Russell’s Mercedes, causing a failure of the DRS, a rear wing flap that opens when within one second of a car ahead for more top speed. Having to manually override this system, George accidentally used it when he wasn’t allowed. He had been called to the race directors, but ultimately could proof he lifted off the gas pedal to lose more time than this had gained him. For a brief moment, McLaren might have thought they would leave Bahrain with a first and second place to their name.

Future looks bright at Mercedes

After the race, George pointed out how: “It felt all under control for a moment and then suddenly we had a brake by wire failure, so suddenly the pedal was going long then it was going short.” Further illustrating the issues he had to deal with from the cockpit of his W14 he continued: “I didn't know what was going on, the steering wheel wasn't working properly. It was really hard to keep Lando behind, I think one more lap he would have gotten me comfortably. But nevertheless really pleased with P2!”

When asked about his consistent top 5 finishes, the lead Mercedes driver said: “It's been four races, three podiums. All on different types of tracks, so it gives us confidence going into the future.”

McLaren are by far the strongest team in 2025, but Mercedes looks like a strong runner up so far. The development race continues, and it is a very long season ahead. Who knows whether the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari can close the gap to the Papaya team. For George Russell at least he knows his car is consistent around various tracks, and he himself can extract a ton of performance out of his Mercedes. Might he be an outsider for the Formula 1 championship contention still in 2025?