Mercedes\u2019 George Russell remains convinced Red Bull holds a key advantage over the rest of the field heading into the 2026 Formula 1 season.<\/p>\n
F1<\/a> 2026 has seen major aerodynamic and power unit regulations introduced that place greater emphasis on energy recovery and battery harvesting, which will play an important tactical factor during grands prix.<\/p>\n Red Bull<\/a> has for the first time created its own F1 engine and its rivals have been impressed by its performance and reliability.<\/p>\n Mercedes <\/a>boss Toto Wolff labelled Red Bull as \u201cthe benchmark\u201d <\/a>during pre-season testing and claimed data he has seen suggests the new Red Bull power unit could be over a second faster per lap on the straights.<\/p>\n Russell <\/a>has echoed his team boss\u2019s verdict on Red Bull\u2019s first-ever F1 engine and is adamant it is the \u201cbest on the grid\u201d in terms of deployment.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cTheir deployment definitely still looks the best on the grid, which is kudos to them and I think was a bit of a surprise to everybody,\u201d Russell said on the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.<\/p>\n \u201cSo I think let’s see come Melbourne [season opener in March] how things shake up. I think the Mercedes-powered teams have made a lot of improvements since day one of Bahrain last week, so that gap has closed drastically.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we’re obviously day six of Bahrain testing now, whereas in Melbourne you’ve got three hours of practice\u00a0\u2013 and that’s the main point of the concern.\u201d<\/p>\n Red Bull rubbish \u2018benchmark\u2019 tag<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Red Bull has been quick to dismiss the favourites tag it has been handed by Mercedes, and suspects the German manufacturer is holding back significant pace to unleash once the season starts.<\/p>\n Asked where Red Bull thinks it stands in the competitive order, technical director Pierre Wache replied: \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to say. We are not the benchmark, for sure.<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n \u201cWe see clearly the top three teams, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren are in front of us, it looks like, from what our analysis is, and we are behind. But there is where we think we are at the moment.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to say about the others, because the run time of everybody, the level of fuel they run, the level of power they run, it\u2019s difficult to say, but it\u2019s currently our analysis that it could be wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t spend too much time on that, we try to focus on how to improve our work.How happy are you with your own work?\u00a0I\u2019m never happy with my own work.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly we have some improvement to do, some challenges around this type of regulation, with the level of oil that is quite low, the level of downforce very low, and the challenge to manage the traction at a low speed is very high, and that is one of the key.\u201d<\/p>\n Four-time world champion Max Verstappen <\/a>went as far as to accuse Mercedes of extreme sandbagging<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n The cloak and daggers approach taken by F1 teams has only added to the mystery surrounding the true pecking order, which is set to be revealed at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 8 March.\u00a0<\/p>\n Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes\u2019 George Russell remains convinced Red Bull holds a key advantage over the rest of the field heading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4752,77078,62540,111,139,69,12362,213],"class_list":["post-303705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-f1","tag-george-russell","tag-mercedes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-red-bull","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}