Formula 1 2026 world championship favourite George Russell is confident Mercedes has produced a strong car for the upcoming season - but refused to declare it a potential title contender.
This year, F1 will introduce a whole new set of regulations with changes to both the chassis and power unit and as everything is new, the pecking order is currently a guessing game.
But expectations are high at Mercedes, considering the Silver Arrows dominated the last engine switch in 2014 by winning the next eight championships, while it also enjoyed a strong Barcelona shakedown last week.
It completed the most mileage of any team and Russell’s team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli even conducted a full race simulation, causing engineering director Andrew Shovlin to claim “I don’t think we could have hoped for a better three days of testing”.
This has led to Russell topping the odds for this year’s title, especially after his strongest season yet in 2025 with fourth in the standings and to many, being the best driver behind Max Verstappen.
But he is still wary of his rivals with two official Bahrain tests to come before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 6-8 March.
“Obviously we've only driven the car for three days and it's still very early days, but it doesn't look like it's a turd, which is a bonus,” said the five-time grand prix winner at the Mercedes 2026 launch on Monday.
“To be honest, in the early days like this, you know when it could be a really bad car and you can highlight those negatives early on, we don't believe it is. But is it a car that can produce a world championship? It's still way too early to see.
“We've been quite surprised by what we've seen from some of our rivals, especially on the Red Bull power unit side, that looks very impressive considering they're a completely new outfit and reliable as well.
“So kudos to them. We've had a very reliable test, but we'll have to wait and see if the car lives up to the expectation.”
The situation marks a far cry from 2022 when ground-effect cars were introduced for Russell’s debut season at Mercedes, whose dominance was ended with the last rule switch.
Four years ago, the German marque produced a very unpredictable car that endured vast porpoising and this made it hard for Mercedes to recover, as the subsequent titles went to Red Bull or McLaren.
But now, Russell believes Mercedes has built a nice, drivable car as he said: “Nobody expected porpoising in ‘22. So you can’t discount everything right now. But that's why I think we left Barcelona with a positive feeling because the car reacted as we anticipated.
“The numbers we're seeing from the aero on the car match what we see back on the simulator, how the car is handling is matching how it feels on the simulator. So this is something we've not really experienced since 2021 as a team.
“So we're sort of ticking the boxes of everything that we want to tick. But we can't discount our rivals because, as I said, there was a lot of talk around the Red Bull power unit not being up to standard year one - from what we've seen so far, they've definitely delivered.
“Ferrari power unit looks reliable. They did lots of laps not far behind us over the course of a test and from a power unit side, Haas did loads of laps as well with the Ferrari engine. So the truth is that there could be a good fight on our hands, but we're satisfied with what we've experienced.”
Although the 27-year-old is still somewhat playing down expectations ahead of the campaign, Russell does have the confidence of a driver who can finally take his maiden F1 crown.
When the title favourite tag was put to the Briton, he said: “I didn't really feel anything from hearing that, to be honest.
“As I've said for a long time, I feel ready to fight for a world championship and whether we have that comment above us or not, that does not change my approach one single bit.
“I'm working so hard with the team. Everybody here has been working flat out to really maximise this new set of regulations and I'm honestly just so excited by the challenge because it is a huge challenge adapting to these new cars, how the energy management works, the re-harvesting of the batteries, getting your head around the boost system, the overtake modes, the active aero.
“There's a lot of things we need to learn very quickly, but I feel I can take advantage from that and I feel confident with myself and my team.”
