MELBOURNE, Australia — George Russell had spent so much of Formula 1’s 2026 preseason testing period downplaying his tag as the favorite to win this year’s world championship.
Yes, Mercedes has a history of dominating at the start of a new regulation cycle, locking in an advantage in 2014 that set off a run of eight straight constructors’ championships. That run included the team continuing to lead the way when F1’s aerodynamic car design rules changed in 2017.
But these all-new cars, with all their peculiarities, such relying far more than before on an engine battery that requires careful management, and the tendency for teams to hide their true pace in testing meant nothing could be certain. Russell thought his rivals Ferrari and Red Bull would take a step come the first race.
As Russell took a seat in the middle of the sofa for the post-qualifying news conference at the Australian Grand Prix, the spot reserved for the driver on pole, he did so knowing the questions on these topics were finally – emphatically – answered.
Not only was Mercedes the fastest team, a status confirmed after it qualified first and second with Russell ahead of Kimi Antonelli, but its advantage over the chasing pack was greater than anyone anticipated.
Eight-tenths of a second split Mercedes and Red Bull, the second-fastest team, with Isack Hadjar in third place. Six teams were covered by the same margin 12 months ago. In F1, that’s light years.
Was Russell surprised? “Yeah, definitely,” he replied, pointing to the cooler track conditions under cloudy skies that may have helped Mercedes. “We’ve got a really great engine beneath us, however I think we’ve also got a really amazing car beneath us,” he added.
It was a sign of Russell’s confidence. This was no fluke. Mercedes, a team which went from unprecedented levels of F1 domination from 2014 to 2022 to four seasons in the wilderness during the ground-effect car design era, has rediscovered its spark.
And at last, Russell has the car he has always waited for since joining Mercedes in 2022: one that is clearly capable of fighting for a world championship.
The first sign of Mercedes’ true advantage emerged in final practice earlier on Saturday, when Russell finished six-tenths clear of the field via a late flying lap after Antonelli had crashed.
Rival team members in the paddock could merely shrug their shoulders. Qualifying was already looking like a battle for second-best behind the silver and black cars. But for the gap to be eight-tenths? That shocked Mercedes’ rivals.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who qualified fourth and spent much of last season battling the Mercedes cars behind the then faster McLarens and Max Verstappen of Red Bull, thought it would be half a second ahead at most.
“It’s bigger than what I expected, for sure,” he told reporters after qualifying. “There was a very significant gap yesterday already. I was very impressed this morning with the FP3 (engine) power they’ve shown, it was just crazy.”
Leclerc claimed he was so staggered by Mercedes’ final practice performance that he had to re-upload the data on his computer because he thought there was an error. “But apparently not,” he said. “It’s very impressive.”
Verstappen, whose qualifying ended prematurely after he crashed out in Q1 when the rear axle on his car suddenly locked when braking into Turn 1, said he always thought this was coming.
“It’s what I said already in Bahrain (at the final two events of preseason testing),’ let’s wait and see in Melbourne and you will see how fast they are’,” said Verstappen. “For me, that’s not a surprise.”
But Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton said he couldn’t understand how Mercedes had taken such a step forward. He hoped it wasn’t linked to the compression ratio row that dominated the preseason politics, where rival engine builders felt Mercedes found a loophole in the new rules to get more power out of its engine.
The matter was defused with a rule change on testing the engine legality under hot and cold conditions that will be introduced from June.
“Hopefully it’s just pure power, and we’ve got to do a better job,” said Hamilton. “But if it is the compression thing, then I will be disappointed that the FIA would allow that to be the case that it’s not to the (rule) book.
“I’ll be pushing my team to do the same thing so we can get more power from our engine.”
George Russell celebrates after qualifying on pole in F1’s 2026 Australian Grand Prix qualifying session. (William West / AFP / Getty Images)
The art of sandbagging in F1, where teams move to hide their pace from rivals through testing by running heavier fuel loads or less powerful engine settings, is part of the game. Russell thought the unclear gap in testing was down to its rivals showing too much, not Mercedes showing too little.
“It was more a case of some of the other teams showing more than we would have expected in winter testing,” he said, noting that Verstappen’s absence in the final stage of qualifying could also have made for a different picture. The Dutchman likely would’ve set a time quicker than Hadjar, given his previous qualifying record as he shot to four-straight world titles from 2021-2024.
Mercedes’ big advantage through qualifying came on the straights, pointing to its engine advantage being the key difference maker. According to the GPS data from their cars when comparing fastest qualifying laps, Hadjar’s Red Bull was quicker on the Melbourne straight to Turn 1, only to then be as much as 12mph down on Russell’s Mercedes on the approach to Turn 9, after a long run from the previous real corner, Turn 6.
Going through the fast left-right section of Turns 9 and 10, neither Russell nor Antonelli even needed to touch their brakes, such was the confidence and stability offered by the Mercedes. As Russell said, the secret to this dominant performance is not simply the engine; it’s also down to the chassis.
Even McLaren, which also runs Mercedes engines, wasn’t able to get anything like the same kind of straight-line speed through to that section of corners. On Oscar Piastri’s fastest lap, which was 0.862s slower than Russell’s and good enough for fifth on the grid, he was a further 6mph down at this point compared to Hadjar.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said his team had more work to do to learn how to unlock performance from the engine through its settings and software.
He also said that being a customer team, which buys its engines in from a manufacturer, “doesn’t put you on the forefoot” compared to a works team such as Mercedes that makes its own engines. It therefore has greater familiarity with the engine systems.
“But it is true as well that Mercedes are quick in the corners, not only on the straights,” said Stella. “There’s a few corners in which we can compete with them, but overall they are faster in the grip-limited sections.”
Stella did note that if you get the most out of these new engines, “everything sort of works better and you go faster in the corners as well.”
Overall, Mercedes starting the season in such commanding fashion paints a bleak outlook for its rivals. To recover a gap of this size takes time, even with the upcoming compression ratio test rule change. And Mercedes won’t be standing still.
“The gap is eight-tenths to P1,” said Verstappen. “That’s still a very big gap. We know that we have to improve the car and the engine to fight Mercedes, because at the end of the day, we’re not here to be fourth, fifth, sixth, whatever. We’re here to win.
“Step by step, hopefully we can get closer.”
For Russell and Antonelli, who qualified second despite his crash in final practice that left Mercedes in a race against time to fix his car in time for qualifying, the goal is to make use of this advantage so long as it lasts.
“You definitely have to make hay while the sun shines,” said Russell. “My mentality coming into this race is if we started on the front foot, it doesn’t guarantee anything, (and) if we started on the back foot it doesn’t guarantee anything. The rate of improvement from everyone at this time of the year is going to be huge.”
But even if the rest of the grid is able to make inroads, Hamilton feared that if Mercedes’ edge remained this great for long enough, it could leave an impossible gap to recover.
“If they have a few months of that (advantage), then the season’s done,” Hamilton said. “(Over) seven races, a few months, you lose a lot of points being a second behind in qualifying.“
