George Russell urges Mercedes to find answers after Red Bull’s resurgence

SINGAPORE – George Russell has pressed Mercedes to discover why its recent upgrade has failed to match expectations as Red Bull appears to have overtaken them as the team to beat.

Mercedes was the dominant force across the first half of the 2026 F1 season, but this accolade has come under increasing scrutiny at recent races.

George Russell wants answers as Mercedes slip back

Of the first 10 races this year, Mercedes won all but two. But in the six since, the team has only a 50 percent hit rate, with Red Bull and Max Verstappen victorious on the last two occasions.

Crucially, these last two losses have come after Mercedes introduced a significant upgrade package in Malaysia.

Such was the disappointment of the performance in Sepang that Russell reverted to the older specification car in Singapore, in order to perform a weekend-long back-to-back test with Kimi Antonelli in the updated car.

“I think the main thing for us as a team is to try and understand how we’re going to find more performance,” Russell told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media in Singapore.

“The performance of Red Bull has been very impressive the last three weeks on three very different circuits, and right now they are beginning to be.”

Russell finished in ninth place in Singapore, after a back-of-the-grid penalty for taking an additional power unit beyond the prescribed limits.

However, Antonelli cruised to third place, extending his championship advantage to 102 points, meaning that the Drivers’ title could mathematically be sealed next time out in Texas.

With a week separating the start of the next triple-header from the end of the last, Russell made clear where his time will be spent.

“We’ll spend a little bit of time with the team,” he said.

“As I said, the goal right now is we need to understand how to get more out of this package.

“What Kimi ran, the numbers say it’s performing as we expect, but obviously, lap times haven’t been that great. So we need to try and understand how to make that work.”

More reaction to the Singapore GP on PlanetF1.com

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Singapore Grand Prix

2026 – F1 race results (Marina Bay)

Russell’s journey through the pack was hindered by overtaking proving to be extremely difficult on the street layout, while a mid-race virtual safety car was deployed not long after he had passed the pit entry, denying him a cheap stop.

This, Russell says, is indicative of his luck this year.

“Ten seconds more – five, 10, 20 seconds more –  it would have helped the picture,” he said.

“But I’m not going to lose any sleep over that.”

Russell added: “The first stint, we made good progress. Second stint, Nico [Hulkenberg] did a good job defending. Really challenging, but yeah, not much more to say.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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