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George Russell has praised Mercedes’ ‘amazing’ 2026 car as they reassert themselves in their battle with McLaren. Russell led Kimi Antonelli in a dominant front-row lockout at the Australian Grand Prix.
Martin Brundle said leading up to the season that Toto Wolff is ‘desperate’ to beat McLaren this year after Mercedes were upstaged by their engine customers in the past two seasons. They have established a commanding early advantage.
With Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar third and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc fourth, the back-to-back constructors’ champions had to be content with the third row. Lead driver Oscar Piastri was nearly nine-tenths down on Russell.
Half a second between Mercedes and the rest
Are you concerned about the 2026 season not being competitive?
George Russell says ‘people seem to forget’ that McLaren have the same engine as Mercedes
The debate over Mercedes’ 2026 engine has been reignited after the one-two. Rivals have alleged that they are unfairly exploiting a loophole in the fuel compression ratio regulations, and a new test will be introduced from June to settle the matter.
But Brundle called it a ‘storm in a cylinder’, while Bernie Collins points out that the other Mercedes engine customers were relatively unimpressive. Alpine and Williams made little impression in the lower midfield.
If the fuel compression trick was something of a cheat code, one would expect to see a clear benefit across all eight cars.
Russell echoed Collins’ point in an interview with Sky Sports after qualifying, implying that Mercedes and co. have outclassed McLaren on the chassis side, too.
“The car’s looking amazing,” said Russell. “The engine is getting a lot of heat at the moment about this, that and the other.
“People seem to forget that McLaren have got the same engine as us, Alpine have, Williams have and the car’s just mighty.
“It feels more like Mercedes from the good old days. I was quite relieved when I drove it for the first time.
Andrea Stella explains why Mercedes are beating McLaren
McLaren boss Andrea Stella accepts that Mercedes’ downforce levels are currently superior, but says the Woking outfit still need to optimise their engine.
It was theorised coming into the season that works teams could have the edge, partly due to the complexity of the new power units. Customer cars only accounted for four of the top 11 in Melbourne qualifying.
“It is true as well that Mercedes are quick in the corners, not only in the straights,” Stella said, via The Race. “There’s a few corners in which we can compete with them, but overall they are faster in the grip-limited sections.
“Mercedes are doing a better job than us at exploiting the power unit, but they have also done a better job than us in terms of overall grip in the corners. I guess in particular, this will have to do with the level of downforce.
“So for McLaren, there are two clear objectives. One is work together with our HPP partners to get more performance from the power unit, but at the same time we need to improve the aerodynamic performance of the car because we need to go faster in the corners as well.”
In-season development has been one of McLaren’s foundational strengths under Stella, and any ambitions of retaining their title this year will clearly hinge on replicating that success.
They don’t just need to improve their car with new parts, though. They also need to understand it better.
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