While speaking to the media ahead of the 2025 F1 Miami GP, Mercedes’ George Russell stated that while he “enjoy[s]” coming to Miami”, the 57 laps around the “quirky” Miami International Autodrome often resulted in a “crazy race”. Despite the challenges, whih include tight sections and an elevation between Turns 13 and 16, Russell believes that the Miami GP improves every year.
“Yeah. I mean, I enjoy coming to Miami. It’s a crazy race. The circuit is quirky. That tight section – we don’t love it, but it’s different. You know, the same like in Baku – we don’t love the castle section, it’s so tight and very challenging, but you don’t want every circuit to be the same either. It’s an amazing race. It’s improving every year.”
Russell acknowledged the ongoing improvements to the event, highlighting both the spectacle and the infrastructure. He hopes that the Miami GP organisers will stick to their current set-up in the future.
“Things are looking better as well – driving to the paddock, it looks pretty cool. And where all of the team garages are set up inside the stadium – they’re the experts, we just drive the cars. It should stay like that.”
Mercedes exceeding pre-season expectations
With the sixth race of the 2025 season looming, Russell reflected on his team’s performance in the recent races. When asked how his race performances, which includes three podiums from the opening five races, lined up with his pre-season expectations, Russell claimed that he had exceeded his expectations. However, he avoided deeming Mercedes the second-fastest team on the 2025 F1 grid, noting the close fight with Red Bull and Ferrari.
“No, I think it’s probably better than our pre-season expectations, to be honest. The pace has fallen out where we thought – that step behind McLaren and then a close fight with Red Bull and Ferrari.”
“We’ve been doing really well to get those podiums, but I don’t think it necessarily means we are the second fastest team. I think sort of on average we’re the third fastest team. We saw Charles had a great race last week and obviously Max the last couple of races, but we’ve just been nicely consistent and picking up points.”
Mercedes’ race pace as a “question mark”
Despite having noted his team’s consistency in the opening races of the season, Russell admitted that tyre temperature had posed a major issue during the recent 2025 Saudi Arabian GP.
“Tyres were too hot, really. That was a big problem. I think just pushing a bit too hard to try and keep up with the front two. Charles put in a really strong race. I was probably driving too quick for what the tyres and the car were capable of, and then we dropped off a cliff.”
With hot conditions also expected at the 2025 F1 Miami GP, however, Russell believes that the team will have to “wait and see” if their learnings from Jeddah can be translated into improved performance at Miami. These learnings, he admitted, could be potentially crucial for the Brackley-based team to improve their race pace.
“Not too sure how this weekend’s going to pan out because in terms of temperatures and tyres, it’ll be relatively similar to Jeddah.”
“We’ll have to wait and see and see if any of the learnings we’ve taken from last week translate into a bit of performance. I’m confident the quali pace will be there or thereabouts, but the race pace – there’s a bit more of a question mark.”
