Russell ‘impressed’ by several teams on ‘exciting’ Day 1 of Barcelona Shakedown

George Russell admitted that he had been left “pretty impressed” by several teams on the opening day of the Barcelona Shakedown, with the Mercedes driver hailing Monday as an “exciting day”.

Russell and team mate Kimi Antonelli both got behind the wheel of the W17 as the five-day event got underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the squad clocking up significant mileage throughout the course of the day.

Sharing his reflections after jumping out of the car, Russell conceded that it was a good feeling to be in his new challenger.

“It’s amazing just to be back out driving again,” the Briton said. “I think at the end of the year everyone’s looking forward to a break, but then after a week or two you’re raring to go again.

“There was obviously a lot of anticipation for these new power units, and so far, just generally on the whole, the amount of power they give is pretty impressive. I think for all the cars I was watching today, with all the different power units, it’s probably the quickest I’ve ever seen an F1 car pass here in Barcelona, so that was pretty exciting to see.

“And the cars, you feel it being smaller, you can feel that weight reduction compared to previous years, so I think from that aspect as well it’s gone in a good direction.”

Russell went on to acknowledge that driving the 2026 car feels “very different” amid this year’s new technical regulations, but also said: “Once you wrap your head around it, it then feels quite intuitive.”

“I think all in all it’s been an exciting day,” the 27-year-old added.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the week – in which teams are permitted to run on three days out of the five – Russell was quizzed on whether the fact that Mercedes had hit the ground running offered an additional sense of confidence going forward.

“For sure, we’re very pleased with the day, but I was pretty impressed with a number of other teams, to be honest,” he answered. “You see the Red Bull-powered teams’ brand new power unit and they’re like a brand-new team from a power unit side, and they had a really smooth day with two cars.

“Audi had some good laps in there as well, and I think Haas did the most laps of everyone with a Ferrari engine. It’s not quite 2014 vibes of half the grid is breaking down and having loads of issues – I think Formula 1’s evolved so much since then and the level’s just so high.

“From every single aspect, it was pretty impressive to see all the teams on the whole having a lot of laps under their belt on day one.”