P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Two of Mercedes’ rivals caught George Russell’s attention on the first day of F1 2026 testing.
George Russell expressed his admiration for Red Bull and Haas following the first day of F1 pre-season testing in Barcelona, where Mercedes also performed well with 151 laps and the second-fastest time.
Mercedes’ impressive performance came after their trouble-free shakedown run at Silverstone last week, raising eyebrows with their W17 challenger completing 67 laps without issues.
Russell acknowledged the strong showing of Red Bull and Haas, noting their brand-new power units and smooth operations with two cars each.
Despite Mercedes being tipped as the team to beat, Russell doubts a repeat of their 2014 dominance with new power unit regulations, as F1 has evolved significantly since then.
The Mercedes team, including teammate Kimi Antonelli, were satisfied with their first day of testing, focusing on tuning the power unit and car performance while noting continuous learning and improvement.
Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin expressed contentment with the team’s performance on day one, emphasizing the importance of gathering data and ensuring the car’s stability for future testing sessions.
