George Russell said Mercedes’ 2026 car was already “meeting expectations” for the team on track, but it was “too early” to tell whether it could win the title.
And Russell admitted he was “pretty surprised” by how some of his rivals, particularly Red Bull, which is producing its own engines for the first time, have performed in early testing.
Russell and Mercedes are listed by bookmakers as pre-season favorites for this year’s Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships respectively, with the latter long expected to excel under F1’s new-age regulations with revised engine and chassis rules.
Mercedes appears to have underlined its position as a likely front-runner, at least at this week’s shakedown in Barcelona, completing 500 laps, the most of any team, and with its new W17 showing immediate reliability.
“Obviously I’ve only been driving the car for three days and it’s still very early stages, but to quote Toto[Wolf]it doesn’t look like crap, so that’s a bonus,” Russell said as Mercedes officially launched its 2026 season on Monday.
“Honestly, in these early days you can tell when it’s going to be a really bad car and you can highlight the negatives early on. We believe otherwise, but is it a car that can produce a world championship?”
“It’s still too early to tell and we’re very surprised by what we’ve seen from the power unit side of some of our competitors, especially Red Bull. It’s very impressive considering they’re completely new equipment and they’re very reliable as well, so I’d like to pay tribute to them.”
“We had a very reliable test, but we will have to wait and see if the car lives up to expectations.”
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George Russell and Kimi Antonelli review Mercedes’ impressive performance at the Barcelona Shakedown.
Mercedes aims to return to world championship contention in 2026 after a disappointing four seasons in which they were dethroned as F1’s top team first by Red Bull and then by McLaren.
But despite external hype around the prospects for 2026, Russell said Mercedes had deliberately not gotten carried away after suffering disappointment the last time F1’s technical rules changed in 2022.
“We definitely wanted to create some anticipation, because we were confident there weren’t going to be any crazy unknowns or unforeseen events with the car like we saw with the porpoise, but we just didn’t know yet,” Russell said.
“Nobody expected the porpoise in 2022, so we can’t discount everything at the moment. But I think that’s why we left Barcelona on a positive note because the car responded as expected.”
“The numbers we get from the aero of the car are consistent with what we see in the simulator. The handling of the car is consistent with how it feels in the simulator, something we haven’t experienced in practice as a team since 2021.”
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Watch highlights of each team running their cars at the Barcelona test on Day 4 of Shakedown.
“We’re ticking all the boxes that we want to check, but we can’t discount our rivals. As I said, there was a lot of talk about Red Bull’s power unit not being up to par in the first year. From what I’ve seen so far, they’ve definitely delivered.”
“Ferrari’s power unit seems reliable and during the testing period they did a lot of laps not too far behind us, and from the power unit side Haas also did a lot of laps with the Ferrari engine as well.”
“So the truth is we may have a good fight ahead of us, but we’re happy with what we’ve been through so far.”
“I want to go head-to-head with Max” – Russell evaluates title candidates
The 27-year-old Russell is preparing for his eighth season in F1, but if Mercedes provides him with a car that consistently wins races, this could be his first year competing for the world championship.
As Red Bull’s first power unit makes its competitive debut, four-time champion Verstappen, who has fought for the title in each of the past five seasons, is also likely to be in the lead.
Russell said of the fight with Verstappen: “I hope it turns out like that.”
“I’d love to go up against Max and obviously Lando (Norris) had a great season last year. But no, (being a title contender) doesn’t add any more pressure.”
Max Verstappen and George Russell
“Maybe the fans and people were looking forward to the possibility of it being Mercedes versus McLaren because there was a lot of expectation that Mercedes obviously has the best power unit.
“But the other power unit manufacturers seem to have done a good job and we know Red Bull has always had a great car. Despite Mercedes’ dominance over the years, it was the engine, not the car, that was letting them down. And we obviously know how good Max is.”
“So I think he’s going to be competing quite a bit this year as well, which is great. Obviously I wish it was a little easier. But it’s never going to be easy and if you’re going to win, you want to fight for it and win fair and square on the track.”
Russell believes that while there are early signs that the established top four teams will still be in contention for the top spot this year, with Lando Norris and Mercedes-powered McLaren as defending champions, Aston Martin and the design of its “spectacular” original Adrian Newey car cannot be ignored.
“The best-case scenario for the sport and the drivers is to have a lot of different drivers and a lot of different teams all competing,” he added.
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Wolff described the new W17 livery as “pretty spectacular” and said the team was looking forward to seeing what the new power unit and chassis regulations would be.
“And at the moment I think Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and we, for example, look like four teams very close to each other.
“But you can’t ignore what we’ve seen from Aston Martin and what Adrian has done with that car. It looks pretty spectacular.
“Honda has had some very good engines together with Red Bull over the last few years, so we know what they’re capable of, so it would be great to see a big battle.”
When will F1 Bahrain pre-season testing take place?
With the introduction of new regulations, a strong schedule of three separate test events is planned before the start of the 2026 season.
With the private Barcelona shakedown complete, F1 will next head to Bahrain for two ‘official’ pre-season tests, with media in attendance and live timing from the circuit available.
Bahrain will conduct two three-day tests on February 11-13 and 18-20.
When was your first F1 race?
The team will then have two weeks to prepare for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne from March 6th to 8th.
The first practice session of the season will take place on Friday, March 6th, followed by qualifying on Saturday, March 7th and the opening race on Sunday, March 8th.
Watch every race of the 2026 F1 season live on Sky Sports, including the Australian Grand Prix from March 6-8. Stream Sky Sports now – cancel anytime with no contract
