George Russell admitted Mercedes struggled more than expected during the 2026 F1 Qualifying session in Malaysia, after he could only manage eighth at the Sepang International Circuit.
Russell made it through all stages of Qualifying, but Mercedes lacked the pace to fight at the very front, setting a 1:35.871 in the final shootout.
Teammate Kimi Antonelli qualified fourth, while Max Verstappen took pole ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Isack Hadjar. However, Hadjar’s five-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allocation moves Russell up to seventh for Sunday’s race.
When asked why Mercedes had found the weekend more difficult than expected, Russell pointed to the unusual track surface at Sepang.
“No, to be honest, obviously this circuit is a bit of an outlier in terms of the abrasiveness of the tarmac, you know, the lap times,” he said.
“Seven years ago we were about six or seven seconds faster and at certain points on the track it feels like you’re driving on gravel. Which is the same for everyone, however, it’s clearly affecting us more than others.”
Russell unsure over upgrade impact
Mercedes introduced an upgrade package for Malaysia, but Russell said the F1 team could not draw a simple conclusion from one difficult Qualifying session.
“Well, that is the big question mark. You know, if you could have done a direct back-to-back it would have been great to know, but that’s the challenge of this sport.
“You know, if I put the upgrade package on last week, even if it was worse, we probably still would have been on pole. And we’d have been saying it was fantastic.
“And equally, if we had the old car here, maybe the result would have been even worse.”
Russell said Mercedes had avoided genuinely poor weekends for most of the season, which made the result in Malaysia stand out even more.
“So, that’s the challenge. As a team we have yet to have, let’s say, a bad race this whole season and this was clearly a very bad qualifying for us.”
Mercedes data does not match the result
When asked whether Mercedes felt certain the upgrade had improved the car, Russell said the numbers still suggested the package had performed as expected.
However, he admitted the stopwatch mattered more than the data.
“Well, all the numbers say it’s an improvement, but obviously it’s a sport where we need to follow the lap times and not what the numbers say,” he stated.
“So, the numbers look absolutely fine and in line with expectations, however, the result wasn’t.”
Russell expects race pace to matter
Despite his disappointment, Russell did not write off Mercedes’ chances for Sunday. Sepang’s abrasive surface and high degradation could make race pace and strategy more important than starting position.
“Well, I think there’s going to be a lot happening tomorrow. You know, the tyre deg is huge. I think race pace will be king.
“So, even though today was a real disappointment, it’s not the be all and end all.”
