Russell is 17 points behind second
After securing the constructors’ championship at the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 8, Mercedes is addressing two different objectives: George Russell’s remaining drivers’ championship campaign and the challenge of defending its team title next season.
The official standings after Brazil put champion Kimi Antonelli on 390 points, followed by Max Verstappen on 279, Russell on 262, Lewis Hamilton on 261, Charles Leclerc on 249 and Lando Norris on 246. Russell trails second by 17 points and leads Hamilton by just one.
Toto Wolff said after the race that Mercedes wanted Russell to score as much as possible and hopefully finish second. He said the team needed to consider how to do that and might give it “all the force”. That was a possibility under consideration, rather than an announced set of team orders.
Wolff also described the constructors’ title as an achievement Russell had helped deliver and deserved to enjoy. He acknowledged the driver’s difficult periods but expressed confidence that they would form part of his development.
The champion still has to improve
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said the experience of not winning in previous seasons had helped drive Mercedes forward. The question now was how to beat its own 2026 standard and build a better team.
He pointed to strong races from Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull as reasons to take nothing for granted. Under the cost cap, he considered another run like Mercedes’ eight consecutive constructors’ titles from 2014 to 2021 almost impossible, while maintaining that the team would still try to do its best.
Mercedes will receive the least aerodynamic testing time as champion. Shovlin acknowledged that this holds a team back, but said the resulting difficulty of sustaining dominance contributes to closer racing and must be worked around.
Wolff’s focus is the allocation of effort over the remainder of this season; Shovlin’s is improvement under next season’s constraints. The former has not yet become a specific strategy announcement, and the latter does not treat the current title as a guarantee of future success.
