George Russell’s big Mercedes F1 upgrade hope as breakthrough explained

George Russell hopes Mercedes’ long-awaited major Formula 1 upgrade at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia will further boost his recent breakthrough. 

The 28-year-old Briton ended a barren streak without an F1 victory last time out at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix to secure just his third win of the 2026 season. 

Russell looked like his old self across the weekend in Baku as he produced a dominant performance to cut the deficit to Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the championship to 66 points. 

Mercedes is bringing its first substantial upgrade package since the Canadian Grand Prix at the end of May to Sepang this weekend, and Russell is looking to capitalise on any improvement to the W17. 

"I've never really felt in a position to fight for the victories because my performances weren't strong enough,” Russell said ahead of the home race of Mercedes’ title sponsor Petronas. 

"But now finally I feel I'm in a place I can fight for victory week in week out. Of course there is a big deficit in the championship, but there is a third of a season to go and still so much can happen. I am just going to go race by race. 

“I feel more at one with the car and hopefully this upgrade will play into my favour a bit more. So bring it on.”

Russell entered the season as the overwhelming title favourite but has spent most of the campaign struggling to adapt to the new generation of F1 cars. After a recent breakthrough in understand how to best drive the Mercedes, he has now declared he no longer feels “lost”. 

"The thing that's changed is I feel my performances are strong enough to fight for victory week in week out," Russell explained. "I know what I need from the car and myself and I don't really feel lost any more.

"Confidence is back and it's growing again and it's all coming a bit more naturally, which is how it has been for most of my career and not how it's been for most of the season.”

The key turning point in Russell’s season has come after making constant adjustments to his driving style in recent months. 

"I went through a few races where I was having to think how to make those adjustments, whereas now it's all just a bit more intuitive and a bit more natural,” he added.

"So what I set out to achieve, in terms of getting the car [into] a slightly better window, I'm now achieving without having to think about it as much. So I can just focus on driving fast.”

Mercedes team-mate and direct title rival Antonelli, who has won eight of the 15 races this season, admitted Baku was his worst weekend of an otherwise impressive sophomore campaign. 

"Last weekend was probably there worst weekend from me of the season,” the 20-year-old Italian said. 

"But still good learning from the weekend and was also a very strange race for me in Baku because it was one of those races where I consciously tried not to take any risks and just drive under the limit which was very weird but it was what I needed on Sunday. I needed a clean result after a very disrupted weekend.

"I wasn't happy after the race but I learned the most important learning was I need to be always 100% because if I don't try to do everything right in my power then nothing is going to come my way."