Mercedes and George Russell are the pre-season title favourites heading into the 2026 campaign.

George Russell is the pre-season F1 title favourite (Image: Getty)
Until last week, all the hype around what Mercedes might be able to achieve in the new era of Formula 1 racing was nothing more than abstract speculation. A trail of thought suggesting the Silver Arrows might be best placed to build the best engine for the 2026 season, mostly based on the fact they blew their rivals out of the water the last time new power units were introduced more than a decade ago.

And, in truth, we still don’t know what the balance of power is going to look like on the grid when these new cars are finally being driven in anger around the Albert Park Circuit at the season opener in Melbourne next month. But last week’s shakedown test in Barcelona does seem to have confirmed to Mercedes that they might indeed have a lot to be excited about for the season ahead.

Lap times meant nothing, and so even Lewis Hamilton won’t be too excited about having been the one to set the fastest lap time of the whole week at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in his new Ferrari. Russell, who was second quickest just behind his old team-mate, also did not care about his pace, the 27-year-old instead far more encouraged by the feeling he had behind the wheel.

Every Mercedes car he has driven since being promoted to the team in 2022 has been, from the way he and Hamilton often described them, horrible to drive. Speaking to Express Sport and other select media earlier this week, Russell offered hope that those days might be behind them, declaring he and the team are confident that no “crazy unknowns or unforseen things” will crop up from here.

Mercedes hope their 2026 car, the W17, will be able to challenge for the championship (Image: Mercedes F1 Team)

The other issue Mercedes have been plagued with for years is a lack of correlation between what the simulator data has been telling the team that their cars have been capable of, and what the reality of their performance has been when actually out on track. This time, having been able to “push the limits” of the W17 in Barcelona, Russell is optimistic that it is not simply the case that nothing has cropped up simply because the car has not yet been running at full pelt.

The Brit added: “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. This is something we’ve not really experienced since 2021 as a team. We’re sort of ticking the boxes of everything that we want to tick.”

At the very beginning of the media roundtable, Russell said he borrowed a phrase from his team principal Toto Wolff when he said the car is “not a turd”. Wolff confirmed that when he spoke to us a little later on, though he reminded us all that he is “a glass-half-empty person” and explained why past experience has taught him to not get ahead of himself this time around.

The Austrian said: “I’ve too often set my expectations in the wrong place and I just don’t want to come to the realisation in Bahrain or in Melbourne that we are not what we thought we were going to be, and that is a race-winner. In 2022, we expected to put one and a half seconds onto the car with the zeropod concept at the second test, and obviously that failed because we didn’t see the problem that was linked to it.

“I’m sure there will be other challenges that will be thrown at us from all kinds of dimensions. Therefore, the learnings were immense. You learn more from the days you lose than the days you win because you just dig deeper because it’s painful, and humiliating. So that’s why I want to dampen the expectations, our internal and external expectations and reduce the pressure because it’s going to be a difficult ride.”