George Russell eager to snap Mercedes trend as title expectation grows

George Russell eager to snap Mercedes trend as title expectation grows?

George Russell has described how he did not make enough progress in 2025 in addressing a surprising trend about his performance.

Russell started the 2025 campaign strongly with six podiums before the summer break, with a win in Canada from pole position. 

Although he also converted Singapore pole into a win, he only scored two other podiums after the summer break, and was outperformed by rookie team-mate Kimi Antonelli across the Americas leg of the flyaway races.

Russell specifically picked out the Austin-Mexico-Brazil leg of the season as an area he has historically struggled in, despite winning his first career race in Sao Paulo in 2022.

That victory is his only podium in 18 visits to the three tracks, with an average finishing position of 8.8 in Austin, 9 in Mexico, and 6.8 in Brazil, although he did also win the 2022 sprint. 

Heading into 2026, Russell is regarded as one of the title favourites owing to Mercedes' perceived strength with the new generation of power unit, as he explained in an interview towards the end of 2025 how the "trend" across these three races, at a crucial point in the season, did not improve as much as he hoped, despite his strong campaign overall.

"There is usually something over the winter you come to review, and have a sort of deep dive into," Russell told select media incluing RacingNews365.

"I would say that the second-half of [2025] was not as competitive [as the first-half], but there is not really a trend as to why that is. 

"There are definitely certain tracks that I perform better on, and there are certain tracks I perform less well on.

"There is a trend in Austin, Mexico, and actually Brazil, I did get my first win there, and it is deemed a track I'm more competitive on, but it is actually one of my weaker circuits in terms of performance.

"It is just how the calendar has positioned those three races over my career, which has been challenging, or less good, so I did hope to make an improvement [in 2025].

"I think I did, but not to the extent I would have wanted. It was a solid season, but we definitely need to pinpoint that next area of improvement."