Mercedes’ George Russell believes Red Bull are the biggest unknown heading into the Australian GP. Throughout the winter break, the British driver has pushed back against suggestions that Mercedes are the favourites for 2026.
More specifically, since the first day of testing in Bahrain, Mercedes have spoken extensively about Red Bull’s package.
The Silver Arrows believe the RB22 is very competitive, even on the engine side – despite this being Red Bull’s first season as a power unit manufacturer.
During his media duties in Australia, Russell spoke about which teams he anticipates will be a threat. Alongside the usual suspects, he put an additional question mark on Max Verstappen’s team.
Russell points to Red Bull
In the eyes of many, George Russell enters this weekend’s Australian GP as one of the favourites. More broadly, the #63 car is seen as a likely contender for this year’s World Championship.
Having joined Mercedes too late to enjoy their dominance from 2014-2021, these regulations could be Russell’s best chance to secure a world title.
The 28-year-old is aware of this narrative, and has spent the last few months arguing against it. For obvious reasons, traditional front-runners like Ferrari have been mentioned as a potential threat.
However, Russell and Mercedes have been more consistent in pointing to Red Bull as potential challengers. During pre-season, it is usual for teams to conceal their performance by playing with engine modes and fuel loads.
According to Russell, Red Bull have been the most proactive in hiding their true pace:
“From our side, there hasn’t really been any strategic poker,” Russell told the media.
“We’ve been very consistent with our run plans over the course of the two weeks, staying pretty consistent on fuel loads and power stuff.
“We didn’t change our plans during the course of the test based on us looking strong or slow. I think Red Bull looked suspiciously slow in the second test.
“We had them down as, I believe, the quickest in the first test. And based on our numbers, they went seven tenths slower compared to themselves in the second test.
“Whereas ourselves and Ferrari went a couple of tenths quicker with a few new upgrades to the car, and as you’re progressing – so I’m struggling to wrap my head around how they’ve lost seven tenths in a week.
“I expect them to be very strong, to be honest. And that’s why we’re just all really intrigued to see how it pans out.”
Putting your cards on the table
Ultimately, the art of pre-season often involves a fair amount of ‘mind games’ between the teams. It is traditional for teams to obscure their true performance in testing, and especially during such a big regulation change.
Now more than ever, teams want to avoid some of their more radical parts from being scrutinised by other teams.
This is for good reason, since any package seen to have a significant advantage will receive additional attention from engineers trying to see if any components are at odds with the regulations.
To add yet another variable to this equation, many of the cars in Melbourne will be substantially different to those seen in Bahrain.
Most outfits are introducing significant upgrades to their packages this weekend. This is understandable, considering that many of the configurations shown in pre-season where ‘basic’ specifications – acting as a template for more advanced updates that are incoming.
In this sense, from both Red Bull and Mercedes, Australia could have many surprises in store.
