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George Russell attended the 2026 Australian Grand Prix Thursday Drivers’ Press Conference. Here is the full transcript!
Q: George, why don’t we start with you. A lot has changed in Formula 1 this year. Just how confident are you and Mercedes feeling ahead of this first race?
George RUSSELL: Well, I think there’s just an element of the unknown, excitement going into the first race. I think it’s been a much better pre-season than we’ve had over the last four years. There are no items on the car that have been of major worry to us. Everything’s working as expected, correlation is good, simulator correlation is good, and they are things that we’ve failed with over the last four years, so regardless of the stopwatch, things are working out as we hope.
Q: You mentioned unknowns. Just how many unknowns are there as we go into race one?
GR: There’s a huge amount. I think there’s a lot of discussions around race starts – a challenging topic. There are a lot of hurdles. I think you can get tripped up by any small error, so there’s no time to relax during a race, during qualifying, pit stops. Things that once were quite straightforward parts of racing are now very complicated. However, to this point now, I think we’ve done the most amount of preparation possible. We’re feeling in a good place. However, I’m sure, new track things might be different.
Q: Many of your rivals have you down as the title favourite. What do you make of that?
GR: Not a lot, really. It doesn’t change anything. I think there’s a lot of chat around us, Mercedes, and take it as a compliment, I guess. However, once the helmet’s on and the visor’s down, you’re just flat out and you don’t really think about any of this additional noise. Just take it race by race and see how we go.
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QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Nelson Valkenburg – Viaplay) As last year was a season full of rookies, it seems that this year might be a season where experience counts, a season for golden oldies: Nico, Valtteri, and maybe George if you feel experienced enough. How important is being experienced this season?
GR: Yeah, I mean, I still feel pretty young, so I don’t know if I’m in the category yet, but there’s a lot of youngsters on the grid. But like the guys said, there’s so much different now. There are arguments that say being experienced is good, there’s other arguments saying not have the experience and going in with an open mind and no previous experience of how it used to be is also good. But at the end of the day the fundamentals are still the same: you’ve still got to go flat out around the corners and the fastest driver will come out on top.
Q: (Mariana Becker – TV Globo) From what you had to learn, you’re still learning, as you just said, George. What’s a new skill that you have to have to drive these cars, or which skill you have to develop much more than you used to, because this is completely different? You have to have other kinds of skills, or more kinds of skills?
GR: I think we all work very hard on the technical side. Even in years gone by you focused a lot on the tyres or on the simulator or set-up, how to get the most out of it. Now there’s just some added complexity of learning more about the engine and how the battery works on different tracks, how the power unit, how the race starts, with the turbos, work. So, I wouldn’t really say it’s a skill set necessarily, it’s just you’re learning new procedures. And I reckon by a couple of races in these procedures will be quite ingrained within us all and we’ll be talking about it much less.
Q: (Tim Kraaij – GPBlog.com) Question to George, but the others can add in if they want to. George, with the situation in the Middle East at the moment, what does the talk among drivers, and do you think F1 can go racing in a month’s time already in Bahrain and Saudi?
GR: Ultimately, I think all of us trust in F1 and the FIA to make the right decision, and it’s going to be changing daily, I’m sure, and we’re still four or five weeks away, so I don’t think anyone is really pressing those questions because there’s still a long time between now and then. And of course it’s kind of outside of our hands. So yeah, trusting the guys at the top to make the right decision. And if we don’t, I’m sure there are Plan Bs in place, but we’re not asking and we trust they’re on it.
Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) George, you had three years in Formula 1 with Williams and when you finally had the chance in Mercedes, the team that was dominating, the sport’s rules changed, the cars, and you didn’t have the chance to fight for the title. Now maybe the rules change again and now it’s your chance to fight for the title.
GR: Is that a question?
Q: (Rodrigo França – Car Magazine Brazil) It’s a question, yeah.
GR: Yeah, I mean, I think every rule change there is a new opportunity for the team who hasn’t been winning. We feel we’ve got a very good chance. However, the last rule change, Ferrari were the team who came out of the blocks winning, and after three or four races they looked like the ones who were going to win the championship, and by the end of ’22 they weren’t even close to the fight. So, the mentality for us, regardless if we have a successful weekend or a difficult weekend, is that Melbourne won’t define the season, and if we want to win we need to keep on pushing, and yeah, we’re ready to do that.
Q: (Kieran Jackson – The Independent) George, one for you again please. You say that, but does the atmosphere feel different at Mercedes this year? Obviously you’ve been there since your fifth season, compared to 2022 when you didn’t know the scale of the challenge. Does it feel like a different sort of morale within the team that you can be right on top this year?
GR: The morale is definitely different, but I think this is more to do with the fact that the car is performing as we expected. What was very important is seeing the correlation is good, there’s no major scares on the car. I put it on the ground and both Kimi and I were happy with how it was handling. The engine looks strong. I think we’ve been surprised by some of our competitors how strong their power units have been, but the package looks good. So that is probably the biggest reason why the morale is high, and you need that at the start of any new regulations to build upon. In turn, the lap times look pretty decent as well in the first two tests, but we obviously know that the rate of improvement at the moment is going to be its steepest slope over the course of these next six months. So, as I say, it’s going to be a long fight and we hope we’re in it.
Q: (Stewart Bell – AP) This is for George. Obviously we’ve spoken about the car and competitiveness of it, but what about yourself? How has your personal development in terms of physical and mental prep gone into this year?
GR: Yeah, I feel in a very good place, to be honest. I think last year was probably my strongest year, not just on track but just how I was feeling personally, and life at home. I think that’s very important to have a good professional and successful professional life. So, I’ve just sort of been building upon that, and I feel every single year I’ve been performing better and better, and there’s still areas I feel I need to and want to improve, and that’s what I’m working on this season. But generally, I feel good, feel happy, confident in myself, and just excited to go racing.
Q: George, what areas are you going to be focusing on improving in 2026?
GR: There are small technical areas I think that I wanted to improve on last year. It’s probably boring, I don’t want to go into those details because they’re sort of my personal bits. But I think for all of us now, this is my eighth season in Formula 1, you get to a point where you just start evolving. You’re making these small adjustments to try and get a little bit more out of yourself. But also, the great thing is I’ve got a really good group of engineers around me who have been with me for three or four years now, and I’ve got a very stable sort of platform around me, so I think that also helps a lot.
Q: (Ben Waterworth – Speedcafe) Question for George. Following up on sort of what was said there, with all this extra attention – you’ve obviously always got attention on you in Formula 1 – but do you relish, kind of, seemingly these questions, more eyes on you right now, that you are the title favourite potentially, and that you’re really relishing showing what you are capable of if this is true and it ends up being you are the championship favourite?
GR: It doesn’t change anything at all for me, to be honest. We obviously sit here on a Thursday and we talk about it for an hour, but then when I walk away, I go back to business and I work with my team. And what’s been discussed here or written in the media doesn’t help me go faster or doesn’t make me go slower. And I think that’s the approach I’ve always had with media, for good or for bad. You’ve got to just not pay too much attention to it because it never positively impacts your own well-being or your own performance. So, I think I’ve done a good job of that in the past and that’s still the same approach I’m taking. And as I said, I’ll take it race by race, not thinking about the big picture whatsoever, and recognise no matter how this weekend goes it’s a 24-race long season. It’s very, very demanding on everybody, and a lot can change between now and Abu Dhabi.
Source: FIA.com
