It was a shock for everyone to see the difference between the face of Red Bull and Mercedes in the first 2 practice sessions at Bahrain. The German team was, on average, a second slower than their rivals. Both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were far from challenging the world champion, Max Verstappen. Now, even the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has recognized that they are deficit to the Red Bull driver.

At the end of FP2, Verstappen finished P1 almost six-tenths ahead of George Russell, who finished P5. But it was the deficit of Lewis Hamilton to Max Verstappen that caught everyone’s attention. The 7-time world champion languished in P9 and was over 1.2 seconds behind his rival.

Toto Wolff praises Max Verstappen after his FP2 run

As reported by GPBlog, the Austrian had no answers for his teams’ lack of performance. He instead came out and surprisingly pressed the Red Bull leading driver for his performance. “Max is driving in a league of his own,” said Toto on Verstappen’s drive in FP2.

George Russell, too, recognized the difference in performance between Mercedes and Red Bull. The Mercedes driver revealed that he struggled throughout the day and was not comfortable in the car.

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“I think it’s clear we’re certainly not where we want to be. I think we made a bit of progress, but the pace is just not there at the moment. We’re a long way off the pace of Red Bull, Ferrari, even the likes of AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo are on our pace or quicker, so got a bit of work to do,” said the British driver.

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It seems that Mercedes is currently not at par with the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari; however, their issues might not be as drastic as Russell mentioned. If the German team finishes behind AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo, then it would be a concern for them to even challenge for the podium in the race. But only time will tell if they can make any adjustments that can unlock the hidden potential of the W13, which can help them during the weekend.