From leading the race to giving it up with a hasty decision and eventually crashing out of the race. Such were the events of the Australian GP for George Russell. Russell PU issues put Russell’s race to bed, which gave the Brit plenty of time to assess the race from the sidelines. This rare time on the sideline led the Mercedes man to believe Red Bull and Max Verstappen aren’t being honest.

Russell believes Red Bull is not honest about their true potential and the ability of the RB19. Some might consider he is indulging in some mind games, but according to the experts discussing his comments on the Chequered Flag podcast, they believe Russell’s allegations are genuine.

“Oh for sure they’re holding back. I think they’re almost embarrassed to show their full potential,” he accused Red Bull. “Because the faster they seem globally the more the sport will try to hold them back somehow. So I think realistically Red Bull 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 his Red Bull.”

“They’ve done a really great job to be fair. We can’t take that away from them and we clearly have to up our game,” he concluded. 

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Russell has hyped up Fernando Alonso also in the past. However, these comments about Red Bull sandbagging are in complete contrast to his comments before the Australian GP race.

George Russell’s outlook completely changed towards taking the fight to Max Verstappen from pre to post-Australian GP race.

The downbeat Russell was not always like this, especially before the racing began in Australia. In fact, the  Brit was pumped to take the fight to Red Bull starting in P2, which he did initially as well.

“We’re here to win, we’re here to fight for victories, for the championship. Clearly, we’re not in a position to do that at the moment, but big changes are incoming. There’s nothing that you’ll see on the car this weekend because naturally, you can’t get things brought that quickly to the car.”

“But I think in the due course, you’ll see some big changes and hopefully, the lap times represent that.” he had said before the race. 

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What a difference a couple of hours of F1 racing can make in a driver’s outlook toward the future. Russell is dejected after his race ended early. However, the Mercedes team can take some solace in the fact they were leading at one point and would hope to improve further before the Azerbaijan GP.