George Russel wants to ‘go for it’ against Verstappen in Melbourne

Mercedes driver George Russell will start the Australian Grand Prix behind Max Verstappen after ending up just 0.236s behind the world champion in Q3 at Albert Park.

Although Verstappen heads into Sunday’s race as the heavy favorite for victory, Russell shared that after its strong qualifying result, Mercedes’ expectations of a successful race could be altered given the chance to attack the polesitter early-on.

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“We’ve got to go for it, haven’t we? We’ve got to go for the win. Max is going to be extremely fast, there’s no hiding that. I think it’s difficult to overtake around this circuit, so the start, lap one, is going to be vital.”

“But, let’s see how we get on. We’ve got to do our race. But if the opportunity is there, we’ll go for it.”, he said.