Wolff rates Russell's Chinese GP performance "10 out of 10" · RaceFans

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff heaped praise on George Russell after he finished on the podium for the second time in as many races in Shanghai.

Russell split the McLaren drivers on the grid and kept in touch with them for much of the race on his way to finishing third. Wolff said there was nothing more he could have got out of his car.

“The word solid doesn’t give it any justice because he just drove a race that was faultless,” Wolff told Viaplay. “He extracted the max of the car and the tyres. For me that was a 10 out of 10 drive.”

Wolff said “a podium is a realistic best-case based on the terms” due to the quality of the competition. “It was not only the McLarens, but Max [Verstappen] you can never discount, and the Ferrari so it’s good.”

Mercedes aren’t quite fast enough to win on merit yet, Wolff believes. “The ambition is to win, but we don’t feel any entitlement at the moment,” he said. “We’re not yet good enough, we’re second in the championship.”

Russell said he “fully maximised every time on track” over the weekend. “I was really happy with qualifying yesterday, getting in between the McLarens.”

He made an early pit stop to switch to hard tyres which allowed him to briefly jump ahead of Lando Norris. However the McLaren driver re-passed him again soon afterwards.

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Russell hoped the McLaren drivers would opt for a two-stop strategy but was disappointed. “The race today was really strong,” he said. “We called it pretty early about the one-stop and it was a bit frustrating it was so [obvious] in the end because I was hoping those guys ahead would have gone onto the two-stop.

“We know at the moment we’re trying our best to catch McLaren, these guys are doing an amazing job. For us to end up quite a bit ahead of Max and the Ferraris right now, that’s a great result.”

He said there was little he could do to keep Norris behind at the start due to the way Piastri positioned his car.

“Obviously I lost out to Lando at the first corner. Oscar did a really good job at defending and it’s always a bit difficult when it’s such a high-speed first corner. I thought I could sneak underneath him and he covered me pretty well.

“But for sure, if we qualified behind Max and the Ferraris yesterday, I don’t think we would have been standing on the podium today. So I think that was pretty crucial.”