SHANGHAI, China -- George Russell has delivered an ominous assessment of McLaren's current performance advantage in Formula 1, saying the team has a bigger gap over the rest of the field than Red Bull ever enjoyed during its period of dominance.
Lando Norris beat Max Verstappen to victory by 0.8 seconds at last Sunday's Australian Grand Prix, but at times had an advantage of more than a second per lap over the Red Bull driver.
Reflecting on the opening round of the season, Russell said McLaren's gap over the rest of the field was significant and could put it in a position to win at every round.
"I think their car is definitely capable of winning every race," Russell said. "Their car should win every race, but I don't think they will win every race this year.
"I think the gap they have on everybody this year is bigger than Red Bull has ever had. But when Max was in that car, he was pretty reliable every single lap he did, every single run in Q3 or throughout qualifying, it was never really a question.
"Hopefully we can be there to capitalise like we were at the weekend, because that should have been obviously a one-two, for those guys."
Asked to confirm if he was talking about Red Bull's 2023 season, when it won all but one race, Russell added: "I think Red Bull's advantage in 2023 was three or four tenths. I think the advantage we are seeing from McLaren right now is bigger than that."
Piastri doubted the veracity of Russell's claim, saying it was impossible to judge the size of the gap from one race at one circuit.
"I would be surprised if he seriously believes we're so far ahead," Piastri added. "I certainly think we have a strong car, definitely. But I think it's still within reach for the others. Again, it's only been one race. And I think we will have tracks that are not as good for us as what Melbourne was. But we'll have to wait and see.
"George, he's coming up with some funny things in the last couple of weeks. We'll see. It's just one race. It's been a track that's been competitive for us the last couple of years. I think we'll go to tracks where we'll struggle more, that's for sure.
"If he wants to write off his season after the first weekend, then I'll let him do that. I think we're very aware that Melbourne was, I think, an exceptional weekend rather than what we're expecting to be the norm."
Russell believes the key to McLaren's performance stems from how the car treats its tyres rather than an outright downforce advantage.
"If you're talking about trying to find that amount of lap time and downforce -- that isn't going to happen in a season, and it's never happened in a season," Russell said. "They're clearly doing something better than the rest.
"They're clearly substantially quicker than everybody when the tyres are getting hot. We saw that in the Bahrain test. We saw it in sector three in [Melbourne] qualifying, I think they're four tenths faster than everybody else in sector three.
"It's the same car as they had in sector one and sector two. The only difference is the tyre overheating, so room for us to improve.
"We know we have room to improve, but we don't feel like there are masses of opportunity to improve in that region. It's quite tightly controlled.
"They're clearly doing something trick. That gap is huge."