George Russell: Fernando Alonso is probably more of a dark horse than Ferrari

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George Russell is cautious ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix and the first race. He also mentioned Fernando Alonso as one of the competitors. "I think we've got a fight on our hands for P3,” Russell told Sky, as quoted by crash.net “Ferrari over the last four years have always been really strong in qualifying and struggled a bit more in the race, so I'm relatively pleased to be not so far behind them.

Fernando is probably more of a dark horse than Ferrari, he had some really good race pace in testing, so I think it's going to be a good fight for P3. It's just a shame the Red Bulls are a bit too far ahead for now."

George Russell and Mercedes

Russell and his team have serious ambitions this season.

It seems that they have worked on many things and want to fight for the very top. "Friday was a bit of a shock for us because we didn't really know why we lost so much performance or were off the pace,” he said. "We made some changes and they exceeded our expectations, so that's a positive, but after winter testing this is probably where we expected to be." There are many positive things that give them optimism.

This will be an interesting season. "Our goal over the winter was to make sure we've got a car we can build upon and that there aren't any significant problems. We spent probably three-quarters of last year problem solving...and now I feel we've got a car which is nice to drive.

It generally feels like a good car, and now we can focus on adding downforce and performance which is what the team have done for so long. There are definitely signs to be positive, but we've got a lot to improve”.