{"id":508014,"date":"2026-02-27T17:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508014\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T17:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T17:57:10","slug":"george-russell-has-what-it-takes-to-handle-2026-f1-title-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508014\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell has what it takes to handle 2026 F1 title pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Brundle<\/a> has backed George Russell<\/a> to be able to deal with the pressure of fighting for the 2026 Formula 1 drivers’ championship, should he be in a position to do so.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes<\/a> driver is a favourite heading into the season with the Brackley outfit expected to be strong in the new era of regulations, which focus on an almost 50:50 split between internal combustion and electric power. Other major changes in the new regulations include active aerodynamics, which replaces DRS, and smaller and lighter cars.<\/p>\n

“Well, nobody’s got more confidence in George than George,” Brundle laughed as he was asked by Sky Sports F1<\/a> how much of a step up it will be for the Briton this year.<\/p>\n

“I like the way he goes about his racing and he’s done the hard yards at Williams<\/a> for a number of years. He moved to Mercedes just as they stopped dominating. Kept his head down. He is the number one in the team.<\/p>\n

“I think Kimi Antonelli, his team-mate, will have a great season as well. But George has got all the confidence he needs to win races, I think, to go and win a championship if it’s available to him.<\/p>\n

“We questioned that with Lando last year and Oscar Piastri<\/a>. Well, Max has been there any number of times before. So, will they wilt under the pressure? And they didn’t. Lando won the championship, of course. So, I think George is in a very, very good place against that.”<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Alastair Staley \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Asked if Russell could handle competition from his team-mate, Brundle added: “I mean, remember he grew up sort of in Lewis Hamilton’s shadow at Mercedes-Benz, and he handled that, and eventually, in the final year they were team-mates, he beat Lewis.<\/p>\n

“So I have no doubts whatsoever. They’re all world-class drivers in Formula 1. You’ve got to beat them somehow. George has got so much experience now, despite being nowhere near being 30 years old that I don’t think anything will distract him if he’s got a championship-winning car.”<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Martin Brundle has backed George Russell to be able to deal with the pressure of fighting for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,239802,245984,817,813,816,3875,22298,254884,945,85,1511],"class_list":["post-508014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bahrain-international-circuit","tag-bahrain-pre-season-2","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-martin-brundle","tag-martin-brundle-george-russell-has-what-it-takes-to-handle-2026-f1-title-pressure","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}