The opening Formula 1 pre-season test in Barcelona has conjured a “positive” reaction from George Russell about Mercedes’ 2026 challenger.
The Silver Arrows are being billed as the strong favorite to lead the pack come F1’s latest era, which for all intents and purposes already kicked off at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, last week.
The latest technical overhaul has introduced a completely new engine formula; something that propelled Mercedes to eight consecutive titles when the turbo-hybrid era began in 2014.
Paddock rumblings suggest the Brackley-based squad having nailed its power units once again, something that got further credence after a strong showing at Barcelona’s private shakedown.
The Mercedes engine completed a staggering 1,000+ laps combined with all its customer teams, with the works outfit clocking almost 50% of that mileage with 501 laps.
The icing on top of this particular cake for the German marque was Russell posting the second-fastest overall lap of the test, less than a tenth away from Lewis Hamilton’s benchmark of 1.16.348.
The Briton, however, is more pleased about a particular gremlin being absent from the W17 that had plagued the entire F1 grid during the early days of the ground effects era.
“It’s been a positive test; we had lots of mileage on the car, which was the main focus of the test,” he said.
“The car is feeling nice to drive, there are no major issues, and no porpoising, which is pretty good news for all of us.
“It will save a few years on the back, so all in all, it was a decent few days.”
George Russell isn’t carried away by Mercedes’ ‘early days’ hype
As far as competitiveness is concerned, Russell kept his cards close to his chest in terms of out-and-out performance.
The Barcelona test is highly unrepresentative of the actual pecking order that is going to be prevalent when the teams move onto Australia for the season opener in March.
This is partly owing to the nascence spec of these early 2026 cars – with Ferrari even admitting to bringing only a spec-A car to Barcelona.
Further, the teams came to Spain with the primary objective of optimising their cars for the two further pre-season tests at Bahrain in February.
“The car has been working well, but it is not about how well it works; it is about how quickly it goes around the track, and we don’t really have an indication of that at the moment,” Russell surmised.
“But we’re in a reasonably good place, but I’m sure things are going to change a lot between now and the next Bahrain test, and then I am sure people will be bringing upgrades to the car, so it is still very much early days.”
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