Russell on Hamilton: 'Our fight isn't with each other'

George Russell says his enjoys an "open" relationship with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton, with both drivers recognizing that their main fight isn't with each other.

The inner team rivalry between the two Mercedes drivers is one of the most fascinating to watch this season, with pundits split on which driver will come out on top at the end of this year's campaign.

But Russell says that inside the Brackley squad, there is no tug-of-war, with both drivers working towards the common goal of improving their team's fortunes and the performance of their Silver Arrow.

“We have a very open relationship. I think because we are at very different stages of our careers there is a really strong mutual respect between us," Russell told the BBC ahead of this weekend's second round of racing in Jeddah.

"We both recognise our fight isn’t with each other, as it may be in some other teams.

"For us, we both want to win but at the moment we are not in a position to be able to win, so we need to work together and push in the same direction to make sure our car goes faster.

"We are on a level playing field. There are no team orders, we have equal treatment totally and they trust us to go out there and race fairly."

• Read also - Hamilton: 'It's been an okay day', but work remains

Russell repeated his comments that Mercedes his working as hard as possible to solve the issues impacting its W13. But setting a timeline on when its problems will be solved is difficult.

"At the moment, we know if we do absolutely everything perfectly we still don’t have the pace in the car to fight with the Red Bull and Ferrari," he said.

"We don’t really know what our timeline is. We are working as hard as possible to resolve our issues, but the only way we will find out if we will resolve them is when we jump on the track.

"I trust in my team and if anyone can overcome these issues, I’m sure Mercedes can."

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