George Russell has told Mercedes' F1 rivals that the 2026 technical regulations "suit our strengths" after a crushing start to the season, following years in the grand prix wilderness.
From the first three races of the season, Mercedes has three victories, with Russell also scooping victory in China, as he and team-mate Kimi Antonelli also have four front-row lockouts thus far.
Antonelli leads the drivers' championship with two grand prix wins in China and Japan to Russell's one in Australia, with the team on 135 points in the standings, 40 ahead of nearest challengers Ferrari.
Mercedes headed into the 2026 season as red-hot favourites to ace the new regulations after a sudden drop in performance through the ground effects era.
Although it did finish as the championship runner-up up to Red Bull and McLaren in 2023 and 2025, respectively, the team only won seven grands prix in the four seasons of the ground effect rules and went winless for the first time since '11 when the '23 W14 failed to claim a win.
The team initially put its struggles in 2022 down to the bothed zero sidepod concept, but as the car did not improve drastically after that concept was abandoned, Mercedes turned its attention to the opportunity of '26.
Recounting his start to the season, Russell explained that the team just "struggled" to understand the old rules, but that the 2026 regulations are in tune with Mercedes' engineering might.
"As a team, it's been an amazing start to the year, and for me personally, it started off really, really well, but I had a challenging race in Japan," Russell explained.
"But it is a hell of a long season, and the most important thing is that we've got a really good package beneath us, and I'm feeling good and confident.
"This small mini-break has been a really good reset, and I'm ready to go again, and for so long, we've had such an amazing group of engineers and designers and the previous set of rules, we just struggled to get on top of.
"But this new set of regulations, this new car, this new engine is more aligned to what we know as a team and probably suits our strengths.
"I think this belief of wanting to get Mercedes back on top as well has really propelled us to this point in time."
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