Mercedes downplay favourites tag after opening pre-season Bahrain test

According to the bookmakers, George Russell is the early favourite to become the 2026 Formula One champion.

So where does this come from, considering the old adage that one must never read too much into pre-season testing times?

Perhaps it’s the fact that not only did they switch focus to the new 2026 machine early in 2025 but also that they finished the season strongly, have great resources and power unit and two fine drivers in Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

The sounds coming from the team and the lap times have been guarded, however, despite Antonelli finishing top of the charts after the first pre-season test. A notorious tactic to downplay things when things are actually going well.

“It’s been a difficult test for us as a team, particularly on my side,” commented Antonelli. “We have encountered several reliability issues that meant I only managed just over 30 laps across the first two days.

“It was therefore a good afternoon today where it was really my first time properly getting to grips with the car here in Bahrain. We were able to complete a good amount of single lap work and then came close to finishing a race simulation.

“Whilst this week has been frustrating, it is much better to have these issues now and be able to work through them, rather than them happening during race weekends. The team is already working through solutions to some of our problems and we can hopefully come back stronger next week.

“Several of our rivals have looked particularly good and have enjoyed much more trouble-free running here than us. We need to try and extract more from our package and hopefully can begin to make up some of our gap during the second and final pre-season test.”

So what of champion in waiting Russell? Yes, slightly more upbeat than his teammate but still quick to play down Mercedes as anything like early favourites.

“We’ve enjoyed a much more productive day in Bahrain than the previous two have been,” added Russell. “That was important given how much running we had missed on days one and two. We were able to work through some single lap and high fuel running, completing a race distance to end our morning.

“We’ve struggled with reliability this week and our performance hasn’t been where we want it to be. Today, the car felt better balanced than previous days and our pace was reasonable.”

“That said, it is clear that our competitors have looked much stronger than they did in Barcelona and that we have work to do to catch them up.

“We will put in the hours ahead of next week’s second and final pre-season test to improve and hopefully we can get closer to our rivals ahead of the first race in Melbourne.”

Testing resumes in Bahrain from February 18-20.