George Russell Hypes Up His Mentor To Be the “Bigger” Threat for Charles Leclerc & Co: “To Be Honest”

If there’s one man who stole the limelight in Bahrain Grand Prix so far, he is none other than Fernando Alonso. The two-time world champion took the F1 world by storm after he finished FP2 on Pole and Q3 in P5 in an Aston Martin! As the F1 community still gets over the shock, Mercedes driver George Russell hyped up the Aston Martin driver further by putting him against the mighty Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as firm podium favorites on Sunday’s race.

Russell, who was also satisfied with his team’s development, opened up on it during the post-qualifying session. As per Motorsport Turkey, Russell said, “I think we’re in a good spot tomorrow to fight Ferrari and Fernando for 3rd place. Especially in my garage, we’ve tuned the car a bit more for racing. So everything will be clear.”

Speaking on Alonso and Ferrari, the Mercedes driver shared on his mentor, “Ferrari’s race pace is always a little bit worse than qualifying pace. It’s the opposite for us. We’re getting faster in the race. I think we’re in a good spot to fight for 3rd place, but to be honest, Fernando is probably the Ferrari for third place. He’s a bigger candidate than any of them.”

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Alonso to start his race behind the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, and the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Moreover, he is ahead of the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton.

Fernando Alonso to remain cautious during the race despite confidence

Despite having a good race pace that made Red Bull sweat, Fernando Alonso wants to stay cautious during the race. A P5 start means there will be a bag full of points, but the Spanish driver doesn’t want to make mistakes to ruin it all.

On this, he said in a report by BBC, “Now we start P5 and we fight with the Ferraris for the podium and this is just incredible. Let’s keep on going, keep the feet on the ground, execute the race with no mistakes, and see where we are.”

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Admittedly, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez are expected to disappear into the distance as soon as the race starts. Therefore, the Spanish driver will have P3 up for grabs alongside the Ferrari duo. It’ll be interesting to see if the two-time world champion can make his experience count against the young blood of Leclerc and Sainz.