What Mercedes is wary of despite starting F1 2026 on the front foot

Three impressively smooth shakedown days in Barcelona have done little to dispel the notion that Mercedes is entering the new era of Formula 1 on the front foot. Mercedes has by far completed the most laps both as a team and as a power unit supplier, rival teams have been keen to install the Brackley-based operation to the top of the predicted pecking order, and George Russell has seen his betting odds as the 2026 world champion shorten considerably.

It is undeniably true that Mercedes couldn't have got off to a better pre-season start, finishing one of its Barcelona test days early simply because it had already completed its entire run plan earlier and with fewer gremlins than calculated.

It is also true that real performance work won't be done until the two three-days tests in Bahrain later this month, and even the second Bahrain test could offer a warped perspective given teams are keeping their exact run plans close to their chest while factories are working overtime to ship the latest specification of aero parts straight to Melbourne.

Mercedes won't fall into the same trap of setting lofty expectations

But Mercedes knows better than to get ahead of itself after a character-building ground-effect era, which came with crippling porpoising issues, puzzling tyre behaviour and plenty of apparent breakthroughs, only to be brought back down to the reality of an inconsistent performance level that could only sporadically match Red Bull and latterly McLaren in outlying conditions. It ended the four-year period with seven grand prix wins and nine poles. A result plenty of teams on the grid would have bitten your hand off for, but not the one that had just dominated the series for the better part of seven years.

"I'm always sceptical about performances," team principal Toto Wolff said. "I've too often set my expectations in the wrong place. I just don't want to come to a realisation in Bahrain or in Melbourne that we are not what we thought we are going to be.

"When we came out with our car in 2022, we expected to put one and a half seconds onto the car with the zeropod concept at the second test. And, obviously, that failed because we didn't see that problem coming that was linked to it - heavy porpoising and the car not being able to run low and being too stiff.

Wolff doesn't want Mercedes to get ahead of itself with its 2026 expectations

Photo by: Hector Vivas / Getty Images

"I'm sure there will be other challenges thrown at us from all kinds of dimensions. You learn more from the days you lose than the days you win because you just dig deeper, because it's painful and humiliating. So that's why I want to dampen our internal and external expectations and reduce the pressure because it's going to be a difficult ride."

Bookies' favourite Russell wants a turn at fighting Verstappen

Russell is similarly remaining cautious, but having witnessed fellow Brit Lando Norris get the opportunity to fight Max Verstappen in competitive machinery while seeing his patience tested at Mercedes, bookmakers' favourite Russell is champing at the bit to get his turn.

"I'd love for it to turn out that way," he said. "I do want to go head-to-head with Max. And obviously, Lando had a great season last year. I think probably the fans and people were expecting it to potentially be Mercedes versus McLaren, because there was a lot of anticipation that Mercedes would clearly have the best power unit. But it seems like the other power unit manufacturers have done a good job. And we know that Red Bull have always had an amazing car and we obviously know how good Max is. So, yeah, I think he's very much going to be in the fight this year."

"We've only driven the car for three days and it's still very early days, but quoting Toto, it doesn't look like it's a turd, which is a bonus!" George Russell

When asked about the odds favouring him ahead of Verstappen and Norris, Russell said: "I didn't really feel anything from hearing that, to be honest. As I've said for a long time, I feel ready to fight for a world championship. And whether we have that comment above us or not, that does not change my approach one single bit.

"Obviously we've only driven the car for three days and it's still very early days, but quoting Toto, it doesn't look like it's a turd, which is a bonus! And, to be honest, in the early days like these, when it could be a really bad car and you can highlight those negatives early on, we don't believe it is. But is it a car that can produce a world championship? It's still way too early to see."

Are Mercedes' calibration woes over?

The absence of negative surprises from the W17 in Barcelona at least appears to indicate a strong degree of correlation between the virtual world and the real one, which is an early shot in the arm for the Silver Arrows as it had been a point of pain in the ground-effect era.

Mercedes has found a more reliable match-up between its virtual and real-world testing data

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

"We left Barcelona with a positive feeling because the car reacted as we anticipated," Russell said. "The numbers we're seeing from the aero on the car match what we see back on the simulator, how the car is handling is matching how it feels on the simulator. This is something we've not really experienced since 2021 as a team, so we're sort of ticking the boxes of everything that we want to tick.

"But we can't discount our rivals because there was a lot of talk around the Red Bull power unit not being up to standard in year one. From what we've seen so far, they've definitely delivered. The Ferrari power unit looks reliable. The truth is that there could be a good fight on our hands, but we're satisfied with what we've experienced so far."

Why Mercedes doesn't believe the 2026 power units will be such a huge differentiator

Any scaremongering about this season being a repeat of 2014, when Mercedes stole a march on the field with a vastly superior hybrid power unit, certainly doesn't seem to have borne out at this stage, with the expectation that energy deployment, aerodynamics and weight management will all be contributing factors to success in year one of this regulations cycle, rather than F1 becoming a power unit championship again.

"It's another example where so much is being made up in performance differentiation in a certain area," Wolff said. "In terms of pure performance on a lap and even over several laps, it looks like there is no one that is really collapsing. I'm really happy how it went for us in the interaction between power unit deployment and the chassis.

"But having said that, we had a solid three days. That is something to build upon but we don't really have a performance picture yet because we haven't seen Max driving the car fast and we haven't seen McLaren and Ferrari doing what they can do."

Wolff blasts rivals over compression ratio drama

But Wolff did have strong language for what he felt was rivals trying to stir up trouble over Mercedes' so-called compression ratio trick, which appears to be fully legal but is still under discussion with the FIA. Audi, Honda and Ferrari are less convinced about Mercedes complying with the rules, though sceptics would suggest the parties in question are more upset at themselves for not having exploited it than at anything Mercedes and Red Bull Ford Powertrains are doing.

Wolff is confident Mercedes' engine is legal - and took aim its rivals over the compression ratio saga

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

"I just don't understand that some teams concentrate more on the others and keep arguing a case that is very clear and transparent," he said. "Communication with the FIA was very positive all along and it's not only on compression ratio, but on other things too. Specifically in that area, it's very clear what the regulations say. It's very clear what the standard procedures are on any motors, even outside of Formula 1. So just get your shit together.

He added: "The power unit is legal. The power unit corresponds to how the regulations are written. The power unit corresponds to how the checks are being done."

Certainly, controversies about Mercedes' car or engine design were few and far between over the past four seasons, so any angst from rival teams can at least be taken as a compliment.

"George is very, very strong and definitely is ready to fight for a championship and is one of the benchmarks on the grid. So I think it's going to be quite fun, especially competing with him" Andrea Kimi Antonelli

Can Antonelli be a title contender in year two?

Whether or not Mercedes does have the car to reap the rewards from its efforts, in hindsight it will be satisfied with its decision to fast-track Andrea Kimi Antonelli through the single-seater ranks so the young Italian could get his rookie blues out of the way in a mediocre car before the pressure ramps up even more.

But is Antonelli ready for a title bid alongside Russell in what will only be his sophomore campaign? "That's absolutely the goal," said the 19-year-old. "The goal is to win and to eventually fight for the world championship, and to be one of the best. So definitely, that's what I want.

"Of course, George is very, very strong and definitely is ready to fight for a championship and is one of the benchmarks on the grid. So I think it's going to be quite fun, especially competing with him. I'm really looking forward to it."

Antonelli will need to step up this year but there isn't the expectation he must match Russell just yet

Photo by: Mercedes AMG

Wolff is certainly expecting a big step in consistency and maturity from Antonelli, but has played down expectations of the Italian getting the better of Russell on a regular basis.

"He's completely on the trajectory that we've always mapped out at the beginning," he explained. "There's no doubt about his speed and about his race craft. He's going into his second season, he knows all the tracks, he knows most of the other requirements, so I'm absolutely certain that it will be a good year for him.

"Having said that, I don't think we should expect him to beat a guy like George all the time. George is one of the best ones. He's a benchmark and Kimi's 19 and he's going into his second season. But we're going to see another step; that I'm certain about."

No more "whales"

What Wolff is also convinced of, is that F1 will be in a better place with these new regulations than the last, despite the potential of much bigger performance gaps at the outset and various lingering question marks on how the new generation of cars will actually race each other - the net result of a bigger reliance on energy deployment, straightline modes and active aerodynamics.

"I don't see any points that are worse [with the new regulations]," he was adamant. "I'm not overselling here, trying to make a product better than it is, but the cars are awesome, they look spectacular. They look like Formula 1 cars now, again. They're not like the whales of the past. The aesthetics are very good. I like the engine concept in terms of the boost.

"George passed [Alpine's Franco] Colapinto whilst Colapinto was doing his long runs. I think it was a 50km/h or 60 km/h straightline speed difference. And that is super exciting, where and when and how a driver's going to deploy it and optimise that.

"We are going to see much more overtaking, in areas that we wouldn't expect. So apart from having the quickest cars with the best drivers, it's also going to have this additional dimension of intelligent driving and tactics that are going to be easy to understand for Formula 1."

Mercedes has the favourites tag after the Barcelona shakedown, but can it keep it?

Photo by: Mercedes AMG