Delighted George Russell says Mercedes must keep improving after Australia success

[p]The Briton, who started the season-opener on pole, took control in Melbourne mid-way through the race after a wheel-to-wheel battle with Ferrari's [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/leclerc-charles/KlCOSRub/"]Charles Leclerc[/a] in the early stages.[/p][p]He came home ahead of teammate [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/antonelli-andrea-kimi/ptGu0mT1/"]Kimi Antonelli[/a] by nearly three seconds and had a more than 15-second gap to Leclerc to reinforce his status as the pre-season favourite.[/p][p][b]"Honestly, thank you so much to the whole team because it's been a long time coming to have this car beneath us and we couldn't start off in a better way,"[/b] he said.[/p][p]But [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/russell-george/xxF56RaN/"]Russell[/a] is not getting carried away with the team still getting on top of new regulations around the engines and chassis and a new challenge next weekend in China with a sprint race.[/p][embed guid="991d0c76-97a7-45c0-9f63-44419f6898ba" url="https://x.com/MercedesAMGF1/status/2030545154764111877" social-type="twitter" /][p][b]"It just feels like another race win, to be honest. I mean, it's race one into a very long season,"[/b] he said.[/p][p][b]"Of course I want to fight for race wins week in, week out, but we're all here now to fight for a world championship, and that's what we've been working so hard towards.[/b][/p][p][b]"And if we want to do that, we still need to raise our game because there were a lot of areas today that we underachieved, mainly around the race start and having the battery in the right place."[/b][/p][p]Russell dominated qualifying and started at the front of the grid, but he was overtaken by Leclerc at Turn 1, which set off a thrilling battle between the pair with their pit-stop strategies proving decisive.[/p][p][b]"Qualifying was a real surprise for us and I think we saw today that Ferrari are definitely there in the mix,"[/b] he said.[/p][embed guid="7150dc2e-c41f-49f8-bf96-453e2c474072" url="https://x.com/GeorgeRussell63/status/2030538728305774841" social-type="twitter" /][p]Antonelli had an even worse start than Russell, sliding to seventh from second.[/p][p]But the teenager clawed back to secure a well-deserved podium after a testing weekend that involved a big crash in third practice.[/p][p][b]"The start was poor, very poor, and I just lost a lot of places and found myself having to chase,"[/b] said the Italian.[/p][p][b]"But the car was very strong and it was good fun at the end. Team did an incredible job."[/b][/p]