How George Russell is dealing with F1 2026 title favourite tag

George Russell is unfazed about being cast as the early favourite to win the 2026 Formula 1 world championship.

Heading into F1’s 2026 regulation overhaul, Mercedes and Russell have been handed the tag of pre-season championship favourite following a strong winter.

But Russell is not playing down the role he has been handed, nor is he leaning into it.

Asked what he makes of his rivals having him down as the title favourite, the 28-year-old Briton replied: “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.”

From a personal point of view, Russell feels in a “very good place” heading into his eighth F1 season and fifth with Mercedes.

“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,” he said.

“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.”

Mercedes’ best pre-season since Russell joined

Despite Mercedes enjoying what Russell described as being its best pre-season since he joined the team in 2022, he is refusing to get carried away and pointed to the strong start Ferrari made to the previous rules era before falling away.

“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,” Russell stressed.

“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.”

Russell has noted a change in morale in the Mercedes camp over the winter.

“The morale is definitely different, but I think this is more to do with the fact that the car is performing as we expected,” he explained.

“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.”