{"id":540661,"date":"2026-03-14T21:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T21:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/540661\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T21:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T21:13:12","slug":"ralf-schumacher-warns-mercedes-still-has-reserves-left-despite-mclarens-2026-f1-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/540661\/","title":{"rendered":"Ralf Schumacher warns Mercedes still has \u201creserves left\u201d despite McLaren\u2019s 2026 F1 progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ralf Schumacher has championed McLaren<\/a> for making a step forward. While the former driver is confident this will lead to more exciting racing, he added that Mercedes<\/a> likely has performance left in the tank.<\/p>\n

Mercedes has had a strong start to the season. This has led to concerns from fans that the Brackley outfit could dominate the year, leading to a repeat of previous predictable seasons such as 2023, when Red Bull dominated.<\/p>\n

“McLaren has also taken a step forward, so it looks like things could become more exciting,” Schumacher told Sky Sports Germany.<\/p>\n

“It is definitely an indicator of what everyone has been saying: teams are still learning, learning, learning how to deal with the flood of data.<\/p>\n

“And it will likely get even closer from here on, because development will really start to ramp up now, and there is always the necessary chase.<\/p>\n

“Nevertheless, I believe that Mercedes still has a few reserves left.”<\/p>\n

After George Russell<\/a> won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from pole for Mercedes, the team also won the Chinese sprint race thanks to the Briton. His team-mate, Kimi Antonelli, secured pole position for the Chinese Grand Prix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Anni Graf – Formula 1 via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Many said the kid was too young, the kid was too young to be in a Mercedes, you should have prepared him otherwise,\u00a0and the kid did good,” Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1 after Antonelli beat Sebastian Vettel’s record, becoming the youngest polesitter for a grand prix.<\/p>\n

“The youngest polesitter,\u00a0I think, I just heard.”<\/p>\n

He added:\u00a0“I’m so happy for Kimi to be on pole. But obviously, if the kit lets the driver down,\u00a0like on George’s side,\u00a0you want to see them head-to-head\u00a0and see what they can do.\u00a0So it’s a shame that George couldn’t be in the lap.”<\/p>\n

Russell will start second on the grid in Shanghai beside his team-mate.<\/p>\n

Photos from Chinese GP – Saturday<\/p>\n

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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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We want your opinion!<\/p>\n

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Take our 5 minute survey.<\/a><\/p>\n

– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ralf Schumacher has championed McLaren for making a step forward. While the former driver is confident this will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,263305,817,264921,813,816,913,945,30966,267911,85,1511],"class_list":["post-540661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chinese-gp","tag-f1","tag-f1-chinese-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mclaren","tag-mercedes","tag-ralf-schumacher","tag-ralf-schumacher-warns-mercedes-still-has-u201creserves-leftu201d-despite-mclarenu2019s-2026-f1-progress","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540661","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=540661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}