George Russell Declares Mercedes “Underachieved” At Australia Despite Dominant Win

George Russell made a shocking confession that Mercedes wasn't the fastest team in Australia despite achieving a one-two finish.

George Russell Declares Mercedes “Underachieved” At Australia Despite Dominant Win

George Russell (via XPBimages)

In Short
  • George Russell achieved a dominant victory at the Australian GP but believes Mercedes "underachieved" in performance.
  • He emphasized the need for improvement in areas like race starts and battery management to dominate in future races.
  • Russell noted that despite the win, the season is just beginning, with 23 more races ahead in the championship pursuit.

Mercedes and George Russell were the ones to beat at the Australian GP, as he went on to achieve a dominant victory. After starting the race from pole, Russell was able to fend off well against the rivals on track to ultimately bring home the victory. However, despite a dominant showing on Sunday, Russell downplays Brackley’s performance in Australia, claiming that they ‘underachieved’.

Ever since the beginning of the 2026 season testing, Mercedes was rumored to be ahead of the rivals in terms of sheer pace. It was clearly visible at the Australian GP, with both Silver Arrows maximizing results and scoring a one-two finish. The race pace was good enough, but George Russell still feels that something is missing in their performances before they can start dominating on the track.

George Russell claimed that his victory in Australia felt like a regular win, not something out of the ordinary. He acknowledged that the season was just one race in, and 23 more venues were remaining before achieving the coveted championship goal. Russell accepted that he wanted to keep fighting for race wins every week, but everyone else had the same goal and wasn’t going to make life easy for him.

It just feels like another race win, to be honest, we’re race one into a very long season. Of course I want to fight for race wins week in, week out, but we’re all here now to fight for a world championship, and that’s what we’ve been working so hard towards.

George Russell said, as reported by RacingNews365.

Further, George Russell continued that if Mercedes wanted to dominate the track, they needed to raise their game. He reflected that there were a lot of areas where Brackley clearly underachieved at the Australian GP. Russell pointed out that the race starts, and battery management seemed to be the biggest problem for now.

And if we want to do that, we still need to raise our game because there were a lot of areas that we underachieved, mainly around the race start, having the battery in the right place, and we were lucky not to come worse off.

George Russell added.

George Russell reveals ‘more opportunities’ to overtake under 2026 F1 regulations

The 2026 regulations of Formula 1 remained one of the biggest talking points. Many drivers feared the complexity of the rules and how it caused overtaking to be difficult. However, George Russell is of the opinion that the regulations give more opportunities to the drivers and teams. He believes that strategy would be very important.

George Russell (via XPBimages)
George Russell (via XPBimages)

George Russell talked about the battery management techniques and how, on a circuit with four long straights, the team must split the battery into four splits of 25%. Russell continued that despite overtaking a driver by using the overtake button, he would then regain the position by deploying his own extra energy on track. As such, the situation was dicey between him and Kimi Antonelli in Australia.

There’s definitely more opportunity and you do have to be more strategic, I think on a circuit like this where you have four straights and you’ve got to split… Let’s say you’ve got 100 per cent of battery, you’ve got to split that between four straights. If you use your overtake mode, your boost button, you will pass the driver in one straight and he will then pass back. So it was dicey for the two of us, but I hope you enjoyed it.

George Russell noted.

Despite the extreme backlash towards the new regulations, they seem to have improved racing action, especially at the forefront. For now, the teams are preparing for the upcoming Chinese GP. The tricky first corner will showcase just how capable the modern challenges are over slow corners.

Read More: McLaren Backs ‘Very Unfortunate’ Oscar Piastri After Painful Australian GP Crash