Russell expects mighty performance from McLaren

Despite his eye-catching pace in qualifying at the Bahrain Grand Prix, George Russell expects McLaren to display a mighty performance in the race that he thinks will be a tyre-dominated grand prix.

McLaren looked the quickest car all through the Sakhir weekend, and the papaya team continued to impress in qualifying that turned into a nail-biting session.

Oscar Piastri set a 1m 29.841s on his last lap to beat the Mercedes of George Russell, who set mighty lap times in the second and third qualifying segment.

However, given McLaren's dominant form across the practice sessions, it was a brilliant effort from Russell to bag second on the grid, pushing Piastri surprisingly close. However, he will serve a one-place grid drop penalty for a sporting infringement, but a third spot on the grid will give him every chance to fight for a podium place in today's Bahrain race.

"it was a really strong Q3," started Russell. "To be honest, I wasn't really feeling it throughout qualifying and didn't have the confidence in myself, which was quite a surprise. I don't know why that was. Q1 and Q2 were a real challenge.

"But in Q3 I just got back into my normal rhythm and put in some strong laps. Really surprised to be a tenth and a half off pole and ahead of one of the McLarens and also Charles up there as well. We were talking before — I think we were both shocked to be this close. So yeah, definitely a strong one.

Asked to reveal what he had to change on his rhythm or the car, Russell said that he simply lacked confidence in his W16 which led to his suboptimal performance in the opening two qualifying segments.

"No, no, it was just all in myself, to be honest. Q1 and Q2, usually you're building up to Q3, but I hadn't been feeling comfortable with the car today. And like Oscar said, I was doing donuts this morning, which is not really the best prep ahead of a qualifying session.

"But in Q3, I just sort of sent it and had a bit more confidence in myself and the lap came together really nicely. So yeah, really strong, really clean lap and a great place to be.

"I mean, this weekend's totally different, to be honest. I was very disappointed in Japan with P5. I felt that we had the potential to qualify much higher up the order. But this weekend I wasn't expecting to be on the front row. I thought P3 was going to be by far the maximum we could have achieved today.

"Realistically, anywhere from P3 to P6, maybe even P7. So to be on the front row is a real surprise. I don't expect it to be a straightforward race tomorrow. I think Oscar is going to be mighty fast. They seem to be a long way ahead of the field when it comes to tyre overheating and the track being too hot for the tyres, which is what we're going to experience tomorrow. So let's see how it pans out.

Pushed on to reveal what he expects from the race, Russell stated: "I think unlike the first three races of the season, this isn't going to be necessarily a qualifying race. I think this is going to be the race which is most biased to the lap times you do in the race.

"Obviously I hope to make a good start. I've been on the front row here before and got into the lead at Turn 1, so hopefully I can repeat that. But I think they're so far ahead of everybody.

"They can pit early, pit late — they'll probably potentially overtake us on track. But as I said, today we're on the front row and nobody expected anyone but Lando and Oscar to be on the front row. So maybe another surprise tomorrow."