In a dominant display, George Russell placed his Mercedes on pole position during Qualifying for the season-opening F1 Australian GP.
Ahead of the 2026 F1 season, Mercedes was coined as the championship favourite. Arriving in Melbourne, the team hid their competitiveness well in FP1. By the time FP3 came around, Mercedes turned up their engine and looked set to confirm their favourite status. In Qualifying for the Australian GP, Russell cemented their status as favourites.
Russell praises team for “really good package” after Qualifying at the Australian GP
By the end of Q3, Russell put his Mercedes on pole in dominant fashion, putting 8 tenths on Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, who claimed the title of best of the rest, in third place. In the press conference following Qualifying for the Australian GP, Russell was pleased with his performance. After his dominant showing, Russell praised the work of the team in Brixworth and Brackley to deliver a “really good package” that even surprised the team in terms of its competitiveness.
“Yeah, it felt very good, to be honest. The whole session felt very clean, very tidy, no mistakes, and yeah, just how I wanted to start this weekend, really.
“These new cars are very challenging to drive; they’re very difficult to understand, the energy management, and all of the other features we’re dealing with. But I think we knew as a team, or we thought as a team, we had a really good package beneath us, and it’s been so much hard work from everyone in Brixworth and Brackley to deliver this.
“But I don’t think we quite thought it was that good. And also, to have Kimi next to me here as well is really great.”
Dominant showing in Qualifying also benefitted by temperatures and”amazing car”
In the first Qualifying of the 2026 F1 season, Mercedes locked out the front row, while Hadjar came in third, 8-tenths adrift from Russell in P1. While many pegged Mercedes as the favourite, few would have believed the gap to be that big. Russell attributes a portion of the advantage to the cooler conditions encountered during Qualifying at the Australian GP. While the Mercedes engine was cited as the main reason for predicting Mercedes to be the favorites, Russell feels the “amazing car” Mercedes has built was overlooked.
“Yeah, definitely. I think the conditions also came into our favour. We know we’re better in these cooler conditions, and as the track temp dropped, we always seemed to find more lap time. But, you know, I think we’ve got a really great engine beneath us.
“However, I think we’ve also got a really amazing car beneath us, and I think that probably hasn’t been highlighted enough in the press these past few weeks.
“I think the car, from the off, Kimi and I both said it felt great to drive. We’re enjoying the smaller cars, the lighter cars, and yeah, perfect way to start Melbourne.”
Russell on the 2026 Regulations
Before the Australian GP, drivers, including Max Verstappen of Red Bull, criticized the 2026 F1 regulations. In contrast, George Russell sees them as a “step forward” compared to previous regulatory cycles.. To Russell, the cars are reminiscent of a “go-kart,” particularly in comparison to last year’s cars.
“Well, the cars are more agile, and you’re sort of sliding them around a bit more. It’s easier to lock up and run wide, lose the rear. It wasn’t easy conditions out there today; it was quite windy, quite gusty, but I’m enjoying that.
“It feels more like a go-kart compared to last year; it felt like a bouncing bus, to be honest, it wasn’t as fun to drive.
“So, I think there are lots of mixed views on the new regs as a whole, but I do think the car regulations for everyone are definitely a step forward compared to what we’ve had for the past, what, eight years now.”
Russell is looking ahead to the F1 Australian GP
With the Australian GP marking the start of this new era of cars, there are still question marks over how the cars will fare over a GP distance. Looking ahead to the race, Russell thus reckons that finishing the race is the main priority.
“I think the goal for us right now is to just try and make the finish line because we honestly don’t know what’s going to happen.”
During F1 testing, teams identified the start as a potential challenge for drivers. Russell thinks that the increased management drivers face also affects pit stops.
“The most simple things that we’ve been dealing with over the past years, such as pit stops, are now really challenging with all the procedures, getting the engine in the right window, the turbo speed spinning enough, the battery not too low but not too high, race starts, we’ve seen our challenge.”
Despite the challenges, Russell hopes Mercedes will have a “clean weekend” and dominate the Australian GP.
“So, I think the goal for us was just to have a clean weekend. Of course, we want to win, we want to be on board, we want to dominate the weekend. But it’s a really long season, and we need to get through tomorrow and just have a clean race because at any point you can stumble and that could be the end of your day.”
