George Russell suggests Ferrari may hold edge in F1 2026 race starts

George Russell has observed that Ferrari can seemingly “run higher gears than other manufacturers,” which could benefit its launches.

Race starts are a major topic ahead of the first race in Melbourne, with Oscar Piastri having raised safety concerns. Russell believes the sport has moved past that level of severity, but, the new engines are currently serving as an “engineering nightmare” for team personnel.

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Russell suggested that Ferrari is seemingly at an advantage in that regard.

With such sweeping regulation changes for F1 2026 on the chassis and engine side, drivers are having to adapt to various aspects of new F1 life. One area which is generating talk in the paddock, and concern in some quarters, is the race starts.

Launching a Formula 1 car has become more complicated in F1 2026 with the new power units.

A chaotic practice start on the final day of Bahrain testing raised eyebrows. Piastri assured that his delayed launch was not the fault of the power unit, rather the actions of others, but called for pre-Australian GP talks over what he deemed safety concerns with the launch procedure.

With Piastri fearing that some drivers could face Formula 2-style anti-stall, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella joined Piastri in raising concerns.

“We have been making progress, but it is challenging,” Russell commented on the matter when speaking with PlanetF1.com and others.

“And I think what is true of this set of regulations, at least from a technical side, is like there’s a lot of things fighting against one another, and they make one improvement here, but then another part of the system is fighting against that, and they’re really trying to balance all of these different limitations.

“So it is like as an engineering nightmare for the guys working, so they’re sort of really getting their money’s worth.

“I don’t know what it’s like with the other teams. I think we have made progress with race starts, but it isn’t straightforward.”

It could be more straightforward for Ferrari than the rest, though, Russell suggests.

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Russell spoke of how he had to take a formerly third gear corner in first in Bahrain, for turbo-pleasing purposes.

“Here in Bahrain, usually the first corner is a third gear corner in the previous generation. Now, we’re having to use first gear to keep the engine, the revs very high, to keep the turbo spinning.

“This is probably the one thing that is quite annoying and isn’t that intuitive.”

Turbo lag is a more prevalent issue in F1 2026, complicating race starts, yet Russell believes that the Ferrari engine can “run higher gears” than rival engines, which could help the Scuderia off the line.

Asked how narrow the turbo window is which must be hit for launching the car, Russell said: “Well, at the moment, we’re just sort of going through our procedure, and I’m only doing my launch when I’m in a given window.

“But we are very conscious that for a race start, you go when the lights are out, you don’t go when your specific turbo is in the right window.

“So as I said, I think we have made progress. I don’t know what it’s like for the other manufacturers.

“I think Ferrari seem to be able to run higher gears than other manufacturers, which probably suggests they’ve got a smaller turbo than other manufacturers. So maybe they’re in a slightly easier position for their race starts.

“But, as long as there’s not a safety concern… There probably was in Barcelona, but as I said, we have made big progress since Barcelona in that specific regard.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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