George Russell says F1 2026 practice starts were his worst ever

George Russell claimed his two practice starts in testing for the 2026 Formula 1 campaign “were worse” than his worst ever, with Ferrari looking the strongest in that regard.  

Changes to the race start procedure has been one of the main talking points during pre-season, as drivers must now rev their engines for at least 10 seconds to spool up the turbo.

This is as a result of the new regulations removing the MGU-H from the power unit and that was what allowed race starts in recent years to be so smooth and instantaneous. 

So they are now more complex with this dividing opinion: McLaren boss Andrea Stella called for “imperative” safety tweaks, whereas Lewis Hamilton rebuffed that stating they aren’t “dangerous”.

Russell gave his thoughts on the matter during Friday testing in Bahrain, saying: “I think we've got a lot of potential beneath us but to win a race, you've also got to get off the line quite well.

“The two starts I've made this week were worse than my worst ever start in Formula 1 and Lewis down in P11 [grid slot, P5 in order] got into P1.

“So at this stage, I don't think it matters how quick you are. The thing that's going to trip you up is going to be that tallest hurdle.

“That's what we're trying to get our heads around right now and we're stumbling on some at the moment.”

Russell was referring to Hamilton’s practice start on Thursday as part of the routine system checks during testing, where the Ferrari driver jumped several cars into first. 

“The Ferrari power unit looked very strong on starts,” said Russell’s team-mate Kimi Antonelli. “But today we made a lot of changes. At the end of the grid, the start felt a lot stronger, so obviously we could not test it properly on the grid.

“But it has been a bit of a weak point for us, to be fair. It is very complicated with the procedure and I just need to really get it right. There is a lot of work to do, but I think today we made a good step forward.”

The widespread belief is that race starts will make more of a difference this year, particularly early in the season, as timing the procedure wrong could pitch the car into an anti-stall.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images

So Oscar Piastri previously claimed that it could cost up to “seven spots” and practice starts this week have shown that the order could change very quickly at race start.

“I thought mine yesterday [practice start] wasn't too bad. I was last, but I think I passed about four cars as well. So I think it's just very random at the moment,” said the McLaren driver on Friday. 

“We’re all kind of learning what makes a good start, what makes a bad start. There's some pretty big pitfalls you can find if you get yourself in trouble. But even just managing the power and the procedure is kind of one thing.

“But also just the way we do starts is much more difficult than last year. You've got a lot of power, the MGU-K kicks in at a certain point so it's trickier from every single angle.

“I think what we're seeing at the moment is people just getting things right and other people getting them very wrong. So I think, certainly in the first few races, we could see some starts that look a bit like what we have this week.

“But we'll start to converge, hopefully, pretty quickly if you're on the bad side of that.”