Russell thinks Mercedes needs work to make it four-team fight at the front in Australia

George Russell says Mercedes needs to continue finding improvements ahead of the Australian Grand Prix to make it a four-team fight at the first race of the season.

Ferrari showed strong pace at the end of the final day of pre-season testing in Bahrain, with Charles Leclerc going over 0.8s clear of the field in qualifying simulations. Lando Norris was second and Max Verstappen third, and despite Mercedes’ status as pre-season favorites, Russell says all four teams are in the mix heading to the opening race.

"It was unfortunate that we, as a team, lost some more running due to reliability issues today,” Russell said. “Kimi [Antonelli] has borne the brunt of those issues during testing in Bahrain, which is a shame. The most important thing though is that we were able to recover a good amount of the program in the afternoon.

“The competitive picture has remained similar to previous days. We have looked in the mix with several of our rivals near the front but it's clear, with Ferrari topping the times and McLaren and Red Bull Racing being right on their tails, that we need to continue working hard to bring more performance. It's looking like it will be a close fight in Melbourne and we hope to be a part of that.”

Antonelli’s running was hit by a loss of pneumatic pressure that necessitated a power unit change on Friday, and the Italian admits he’d have liked more track time from his testing program.

“We had a disappointing end to our pre-season testing with a power unit issue stopping us running prematurely this morning,” Antonelli said. “We've had several reliability issues here in Bahrain and that has limited the mileage I've managed in the W17. It's frustrating for everyone in the team but that is what testing is for. Before our stoppage today, we still managed 49 laps and that is useful learning.

“We now have a short turnaround before we head to Melbourne. We've got a solid platform to build from, but we know we need to continue to improve if we are to be in the fight at the front there. We have several areas of particular focus, alongside bringing general performance to the car, and everyone at Brackley and Brixworth is already working on that.”

Despite Antonelli’s running being cut short, Mercedes ended the final week with the highest mileage of all 11 teams, completing 437 laps across the past three days.

“Unfortunately, our final day of pre-season testing wasn't a perfect one,” trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said. “We suffered an issue on the power unit side which curtailed Kimi's running at 49 laps. Despite that though, we did a good job of getting the car out relatively early in the afternoon and overall, we were able to complete a lot of useful work with both drivers. We kept the focus on setup items and long run consistency today, which allowed us to cover quite a bit of ground.

“The competitive picture still isn't truly clear, but we know that we have plenty of work ahead as we finalize our preparations for Melbourne. We've put together a solid foundation to build from, are looking forward to the challenge ahead, and excited to see how the W17 performs when racing.”