McLaren look "absolutely dominant" heading into first race

George Russell is convinced McLaren will start the new Formula 1 season as the team to beat following their performance in pre-season testing.

The Mercedes driver is hoping his car will prove less prone to severe swings in performance over the upcoming season.

“The car’s feeling good,” he told the official F1 channel. “I think last year, even though we finished in the lowest [position] that we have done in the last three years, we won the [highest] number of races.

“I have confidence that this car is going to be slightly more consistent, not quite as peaky. So we might not see those mega highs like we saw in Vegas, and just sort of wiping the floor with everybody, but then hopefully we’re not going to see those lows as well that we saw at a few races.

“But we can’t kid ourselves. We know McLaren are without doubt the favourites right now. They look absolutely dominant and I’m sure they’re going to be the ones to beat.”

However McLaren driver Oscar Piastri was reluctant to raise expectations he could become Australia’s first home F1 race winner this weekend.

“I know what you want me to say, and everyone’s headline can be that, but we’ll see,” he said during an FIA press conference.

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“No one really knows what to expect. Testing went pretty well, but you don’t know where everybody stands.

“We’re pretty happy with how our test went, but as we’ve said, Melbourne is a completely different track to Bahrain. The weather is going to be different to Bahrain and different every hour, by the look of it.

“So it’s going to be an interesting weekend for sure, but I think hopefully we’re expecting to be somewhere up the front. Whether that’s right at the pointy end, we’ll wait until Saturday.”