George Russell says Mercedes’ 2026 car has “ticked the boxes” for the team on track but it’s “too early to tell” whether it will be a championship winner.

Russell admitted they were “very surprised” by the early performance of some of their rivals in testing, particularly Red Bull, who are producing their own engines for the first time.

Russell and Mercedes have been named by bookmakers as pre-season favorites for this year’s Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships respectively, with the latter long expected to stand out under F1’s new era of rules, which will feature revised engine and chassis rules.

Mercedes seemed to underline their status as potential front-runners by completing the most laps (500) of at least one week in Barcelona, ​​with their new W17 immediately showing strong reliability.

“Obviously we’ve only had the car for three days and it’s early days, but to quote Toto (Wolf) it doesn’t look like a piece of shit, which is an added bonus,” Russell said as Mercedes officially launched the 2026 season on Monday.

“To be honest, at such an early stage 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 champion?

“It’s still early days and we’ve been really surprised by the performance of some of our competitors, especially on the Red Bull power unit, which looks very impressive considering they’re brand new and reliable too, so hats off to them.

“We’ve had very solid tests, but we have to wait and see if the car lives up to expectations.”

Mercedes are aiming to return to world title contention in 2026 after a frustrating four seasons in which they were overtaken as F1 leaders by Red Bull and McLaren.

Despite the hype around the prospect of 2026, Russell said Mercedes were deliberately not getting carried away after being disappointed when F1’s technical regulations were last changed for 2022.

“We certainly want to have expectations because while we’re confident that nothing crazy unknown or unforeseen is going to happen to the car like we saw with the Dolphin, we still don’t know,” Russell said.

“No one expected a dolphin-like situation in ’22, so you can’t underestimate everything now. But that’s why I think we leave Barcelona with a positive feeling because the car reacted exactly as we expected.”

“The aerodynamic data we saw from the car matched what we saw on the simulator. The way the car handled matched the feel on the simulator. That’s something we as a team haven’t really experienced since 2021.

“We’re ticking all the boxes we want but we can’t underestimate our rivals. As I said, there’s been a lot of talk about the Red Bull power unit not being up to first-year standards. From what we’ve seen so far, they’ve certainly delivered.

“The Ferrari power unit looks solid, they did a lot of laps not far away during testing and from a power unit perspective, Haas also did a lot of laps with the Ferrari engine.

“So the fact is, we’re probably going to face a good battle, but we’re happy with what we’ve experienced so far.”

‘I do want to go head-to-head with Max’ – Russell assesses possible title contenders

Russell, 27, is preparing for his eighth season in F1 but this year will be his first in contention for the world title if Mercedes delivers a car that can consistently win races.

The debut of Red Bull’s first power unit could also keep four-time champion Verstappen – who has been in contention for the title for the past five seasons – at the front of the pack as well.

“I hope it goes like this,” Russell said of the race with Verstappen.

“I do want to play with Max and obviously Lando (Norris) had a great season last year. But no, (being the favorite) doesn’t add any more pressure.

“You know, fans and people are probably looking forward to a Mercedes versus McLaren fight because there’s a general expectation that Mercedes obviously has the best power unit.

“But it seems like the other power unit manufacturers are doing a good job and we know Red Bull have always had an amazing car and even though Mercedes have been dominant for many years it’s been their engines that have let them down, not their cars. And we obviously know how good Max is.

“So I think he’s probably going to race this year, which is great. You obviously hope you have an easier time. But it should never be easy, and if you’re going to win, you want to fight for it and win it fair and square on the track.”

Russell believes that while there are early signs that the top four teams will all still be in the lead this year, with Lando Norris and Mercedes-powered McLaren the reigning champions, he also believes Aston Martin and their “spectacular” first-ever Adrian Newey design cannot be underestimated.

“The best-case scenario for the sport and the drivers is that there are many different drivers and many different teams competing,” he added.

“I think at the moment it looks like Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and ourselves are four teams that are very close to each other.

“But you can’t underestimate what you see from an Aston Martin and what Adrian has done to that car. It looks absolutely spectacular.

“Honda has had very good engines from working with Red Bull over the past few years, so we also know what they are capable of. So it’s great to see a big battle.”

When does the F1 Bahrain pre-season test take place?

The introduction of the new regulations means there will be a full schedule of three separate testing events before the start of the 2026 season.

With the closed race in Barcelona over, F1 will next head to Bahrain for two “official” pre-season tests, where the media will be present and on-track timing will be provided.

The two three-day Tests in Bahrain are held from February 11 to 13 and 18 to 20 respectively.

When was the first F1 race?

Teams then have two weeks to prepare for the first round of the season, the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne from March 6-8.

The first practice session of the season will be held on Friday 6 March, qualifying will be held on Saturday 7 March and the opening race will be held on Sunday 8 March.

Stream every race of the 2026 F1 season live on Sky Sports, starting with the Australian Grand Prix on March 6-8. Watch Sky Sports now – no contract, cancel anytime