George Russell says Red Bull half second a lap ahead on deployment

There is no doubt that Mercedes, after 500 laps in Barcelona, was considered a favorite, especially given their history when they aced the first V6 turbo-hybrid era back in 2014.

Red Bull also impressed in Barcelona, as their first-ever F1 power unit built in collaboration with Ford showed decent reliability out of the box.

But then the games started, with Toto Wolff kicking them off, claiming Red Bull Racing's RB22 was the class of the field both on the chassis and the power unit side, to which Max Verstappen responded, accusing the Austrian that he is just diverting attention from Mercedes' engine compression ratio saga.

Then, at the conclusion of the first official preseason test in Bahrain, Red Bull Racing's tech boss Pierre Wache claimed Mercedes, Ferrari, and even McLaren are ahead of his team based on initial analysis.

But now George Russell has toed the line, saying in Bahrain: "I do think this test has been a bit of a reality check for all of us.

"Firstly, [there was] a huge amount of chat regarding Mercedes and our power unit in the winter, all of which is speculation because nobody knows anything at that point.

"And the truth is, Red Bull on Barcelona day one hit the ground running and were well ahead of all of their competitors, so ourselves, Ferrari, and the others.

"Day one here in Bahrain again; they sort of knocked it out of the park. So, at the moment, they're very much a team to beat. So we've got work to do," he added.

Russell even went as far as claiming Red Bull had a huge gap over its rivals; he continued: "And they're not just a small step ahead.

"You're talking in the order of half a second to a second in deployment over the course of a lap. So it's pretty scary to see that difference.

"Well, I hope we've got a big ace up our sleeve," Russell responded when he was presented with Verstappen's aforementioned comments. "Of course, everybody during testing, no one's running their maximum performance, and you're still learning.

"But the truth is they've hit the ground running far better than every other team. And when we compare ourselves, not only to Red Bull but also Ferrari, they also look in a good place. I think we've delivered a very strong car this year.

"Of course, all of the chat around our competitiveness for this season was based on the power unit side. There will be big development, but right now Red Bull are the team to beat in that area.

"It's pretty impressive what they've done, considering they're a brand-new outfit. We hope we can catch up," the Briton concluded.

Notably, both Mercedes' and Red Bull's Bahrain tests were far from ideal, as both suffered from reliability issues, managing 282 and 343 laps, respectively.

On the other hand, Williams and McLarens jointly managed the highest number of laps—422.

However, Mercedes ended the test in Bahrain with Kimi Antonelli and Russell first and second fastest, respectively. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)