George Russell hopes Mercedes’ new upgrade for Sepang will build on the breakthrough he found in his Baku victory last time out. That win, his third of the 2026 season, cut his championship deficit to team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli to 66 points. The George Russell Sepang upgrade is the next step, and he wants it to keep that momentum going.
It’s still a big gap with a third of the season to go, but Russell feels able to fight for wins regularly now, rather than hoping one comes his way. He says the belief has returned.
“I’ve never really felt in a position to fight for the victories because my performances weren’t strong enough,” Russell said. “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.”
Russell and Antonelli reflect on contrasting Baku performances
Russell’s victory capped a shift in his own driving, rather than any sudden change in the car. “The thing that’s changed is I feel my performances are strong enough to fight for victory week in week out,” he said. He added: “I know what I need from the car and myself and I don’t really feel lost any more.”
That sense of rhythm has returned after weeks where little came naturally. “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,” Russell said. More on that turnaround features in his Baku Grand Slam reaction.
Antonelli’s weekend went the other way. “Last weekend was probably there worst weekend from me of the season,” the Italian said.
He still took something from it. “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,” Antonelli said. “I needed a clean result after a very disrupted weekend.”
He wasn’t happy with the way the race went, but he said the main lesson was to keep giving everything he has in every session, since results only come when he does.
Mercedes upgrade package and championship standing context
Mercedes will bring its first big upgrade since the Canadian Grand Prix at the end of May to Sepang. Russell is counting on it to lock in the gains he’s made with the car. The George Russell Sepang upgrade lands at a point where he says he’s stopped overthinking the car and started simply driving it.
“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 said. “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.”
He’s hopeful the new parts build on that feel instead of disrupting it. “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 said. For more on the numbers behind his recent form, see his recent Baku form analysis.
Antonelli still leads the standings comfortably, having won eight of the 15 races held this season, and that record is why Russell’s 66-point gap remains significant despite the Baku win. The full interview, including both drivers’ comments, is available via the Crash.net source report.
Upcoming Sepang race timeline and title race outlook
With a third of the calendar still to run, Russell isn’t getting ahead of himself. He’s taking each round as it comes, rather than fixating on the gap to Antonelli. Sepang will be the first real test of whether the upgrade matches the confidence he’s rebuilt behind the wheel, and it’s one we’ll be watching closely.
Both drivers had a break before the next round. Russell was among those who used the gap to recharge, as detailed in his recent Langkawi break. Antonelli arrives wanting to apply the lesson he took from Baku: give full effort every session.
