Former IndyCar Series driver and F1 TV pundit James Hinchcliffe believes George Russell may have unlocked the performance of his Mercedes machinery, questioning whether the Briton has "cracked the code" to gain an edge over his team-mate Kimi Antonelli.
Russell dominated the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, taking pole position and winning the race at the Baku City Circuit. Antonelli, who leads the drivers' championship, crashed during qualifying.
After starting from 16th on the grid, Antonelli finished fifth, collecting 10 points compared to Russell's 25. As a result, Russell reduced the Italian's championship advantage to 66 points.
Speaking on the F1 Nation podcast, Hinchcliffe discussed Russell's performance.
"What's interesting for me is even at other tracks when George has been able to pull out good laps in practice, a good qualifying effort, in the race Kimi's always still had the edge, even when George has won," Hinchcliffe explained.
"You think back to when he passed him in Barcelona before Kimi's car expired. He was closing down on everybody in Austria. Today they didn't have that. Kimi did not have the pace of George. Kimi didn't have the pace of George all weekend long.
"Fine, he missed some laps in first practice, but he had FP2. He had FP3. He's a professional. He gets up to speed quickly. What I'm really curious about is, has George cracked the code a little bit? Has he found something? Has he figured out how to get that extra step of performance out of this car? Because at no point this weekend was Kimi anywhere close to his level."
Hinchcliffe added: "And I'm not saying that he has, but I'm curious if we get to Malaysia, if we get to Singapore, if we start seeing him closer, especially in race pace, maybe he has finally started to put all the pieces together."
