Norris hits back at Russell's championship advice

Mar.19 (GMM) McLaren should not follow George Russell’s advice by halting development of its pacesetting 2025 car.

That is the view of world championship leader Lando Norris, who Mercedes driver Russell thinks is now in pole position to retain that lead this season.

“McLaren has such a big gap to the others that they could stop development already and focus completely on 2026,” Russell had said in Melbourne.

“If you have a six-tenths lead at the beginning of the year, nobody overcomes that.”

Every team up and down pitlane is weighing up the unique conundrum of having to improve their current car within this season, whilst also developing a brand new platform and project for the radically-different 2026 rules.

Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko left Melbourne sounding optimistic that McLaren’s current advantage could be eroded over the initial 3-5 races in 2025.

“Max (Verstappen) was three tenths off in qualifying,” Norris said after winning the Australian GP. “Last year, we were much further off and ended up with the best car by the end of the season.

“I know George made some comments that we can just turn our focus to 2026,” he added. “If that’s their (Mercedes’) mentality, wonderful, but that’s not the mentality to have. Sorry, mate.

“We know we still have a lot of work to do on this year’s car. If you relax in this position, you fail. In Formula 1, if you start thinking things are good and groovy, that’s when you get caught.”

Russell, however, hit back: “They look pretty good and groovy at the moment. So yeah – we’ll see.”