Entering the 2026 Formula 1 season, Mercedes were the clear favorites to win the constructor world championship in year number one of the new set of regulations. George Russell was the outright favorite to claim his first world championship, with second-year teammate Kimi Antonelli not far behind.
But both drivers also entered the 2026 season without contracts to compete into 2027, and given Toto Wolff's seemingly never-ending pursuit of four-time world champion Max Verstappen, which dates all the way back to pre-2014, both Russell and Antonelli were considered to be on the hot seat, or at the very least, the "warm seat".
It's no secret that this is a championship or bust season for Mercedes, and given the fact that Russell consistently outperformed seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton during their three years as teammates, plus the fact that his performance gap over then-rookie Antonelli was wide in 2025, he earned the right to be considered the favorite.
Just three races into the season, the tides have turned.
Antonelli initially appeared to be the one cracking under pressure in Melbourne with a massive accident in practice, which only backed up the narrative promoted by his critics at every opportunity throughout 2025.
But he salvaged P2 in qualifying and matched his career-high finish with P2 in the Grand Prix, before going on to become the sport's youngest polesitter and second youngest Grand Prix winner of all-time in Shanghai.
Then came Suzuka. The 19-year-old Italian again took pole, and given the massive disadvantage the Silver Arrows still seem to have on race starts, he again lost the lead at the start, and this time, he dropped all the way down to P6.
While the timing of the safety car brought out by Ollie Bearman's crash certainly helped his race strategy, he was able to do what we've come to expect of the Mercedes this year: overcome a rough jump off the line, and pull away for a dominant victory.
Russell, meanwhile, couldn't even recover to finish on the podium, and while circumstances certainly played into that disappointing result, the rocketship status of this year's W17 has made any non-1-2 finish for the Silver Arrows a significant underachievement thus far.
The 28-year-old British driver is still listed by FanDuel Sportsbook as the -105 favorite to win this year's title, despite Antonelli having become the sport's youngest ever world championship leader by nine points, but it's effectively a toss-up, with Antonelli's odds having come down all the way to +140 following his latest display of dominance.
There's a long way to go, but the pressure is already starting to mount.
Even though Russell was the better driver in 2025, it always felt like, if Wolff was going to pursue Verstappen again, Russell was going to be the one on the chopping block, and the only way to prevent those rumors was to win the world championship in 2026.
And whether we like it or not, Russell has shown that he is prone to letting things get into his head. We're not just talking about his last-lap crash in Singapore while battling for a podium position in 2023, either.
The fact that he literally planned a scripted a rant against Verstappen by orchestrating a follow-up question from a specific journalist in 2024 will never not be an all-time classic.
With a young and talented teenager now making all the headlines, how will he respond?
We might already have an answer, as he has gone on record and stated that Antonelli has "no momentum", despite winning back-to-back races, simply because of the fact that April's two races were canceled due to the conflict in the Middle East.
And there was a lot of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" in the whole quote, regarding how Antonelli won and Russell lost.
Cold hard truth, or early nerves, layered with excuses, in disguise?
On that note, these two cancelations have also given Mercedes two fewer races with which to work before the regulations are inevitably changed regarding their compression ratio advantage, which is believed to be a major driving force behind their early-season dominance.
In other words, the window for Russell to create separation from the rest of the pack is closing, and the only separation that now exists is actually a nine-point deficit to his teammate, rather than a lead.
As for the age-old Verstappen to Mercedes rumor, the Dutchman's own future is certainly in question, with him being among the most vocal critics of the new regulations.
But while his previous warnings about these new regulations dating back to 2023, plus his negative reaction to other aspects of the sport even when he was stringing together massive win streaks, prove that his current complaints are far from a "political" reaction to Red Bull's struggles, whether his future in Formula 1 is in question, or merely his future at Red Bull, remains to be seen.
Of course, if Antonelli continues to perform at a high level, Wolff may not want to upset the apple cart by bringing in another No. 1 driver. Let's not forget that he would have massive leverage with both Russell and Verstappen when it comes to any contract negotiations.
With Russell, his leverage would quite literally be Verstappen. With Verstappen, his leverage would be the fact that he can pay Russell a fraction of what the 71-time Grand Prix winner would command, plus the fact that he'd already have a world championship-level driver in Antonelli on the roster.
But the elephant in the room is that it's still hard to see him passing up Verstappen if he actually gets the chance to sign him.
Russell was once viewed as a talented, young Mercedes junior driver in his own right, and he has certainly backed that up since replacing Valtteri Bottas in 2022. But Antonelli has been dubbed the "next Max Verstappen" since before he could even legally drive a street car.
While that label was, in some ways, mocked during his rookie season amid his struggles, he's now showing the world what he is truly capable of.
And while two wins over a stretch of eight days isn't exactly a huge sample size, he now gets to head to Miami, after Formula 1's unexpected five-week break, with the world championship lead that many once assumed would belong to his teammate from start to finish of 2026.
Following a relatively quiet Formula 1 silly season in 2025, this year's dominoes could start to fall at the top.
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