6 Winners and 5 Losers from the 2026 Australian Grand Prix – who began the season in type?

Mercedes lived as much as their billing as pre-season favourites with a dominant efficiency within the season-opening Grand Prix as George Russell led residence staff mate Kimi Antonelli at Albert Park. But because the Silver Arrows popped the champagne, just a few of their rivals could not wait to maneuver on and neglect the previous couple of days down beneath…

Winners: Mercedes

Russell has minimize a relaxed and assured determine since he realised simply how good the 2026-spec Mercedes was within the first few laps of pre-season testing – and he delivered on expectation in a positive method with some scintillating tempo at Albert Park.

His lap for pole was unreal, the Briton ending up round 0.8s away from the subsequent non-Mercedes automotive – and whereas he battled Charles Leclerc for the lead within the first 10 laps, he was capable of stretch away thereafter to safe his sixth profession Grand Prix win.