Steiner: Russell holds the cards as Mercedes’ 2026 puzzle narrows
George Russell doesn’t have a 2026 contract yet, but Guenther Steiner can’t see a universe where Mercedes lets him walk. Not after the season he’s stitching together, and not with the 2026 reset looming. In Steiner’s view, that’s exactly why Russell is negotiating from a position of strength.
Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, the former Haas boss laid it out bluntly: Mercedes don’t have a better option. The field for title-calibre drivers isn’t exactly teeming, and Russell, fresh off an assured Singapore win — his second of the year — has stepped comfortably into the leadership void that opened when Lewis Hamilton departed. That was a genuine question mark 12 months ago. It isn’t now.
“George knows what he’s worth,” Steiner said, noting that the holdup is less about if and more about how long. The read inside the paddock is simple: Russell wants multi-year security and top-tier money. Mercedes, meanwhile, are reportedly keeping at least one eye on the bigger chessboard — 2026’s new ruleset, and the distant-but-never-quiet speculation around Max Verstappen’s future and Mercedes’ long-term investment in Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Steiner even hinted at the internal tension of that strategy. Offer Russell one year and you keep a seat in play if something seismic happens elsewhere. Offer him the term he wants, and you lock down the present but lose flexibility for the unknowns of 2027. His conclusion? Right now, the leverage sits with the guy doing the winning.
“Think about it,” Steiner argued. “Mercedes aren’t here to participate. They’re here to fight for world championships. So who else is there than George?” In other words: there’s no realistic like-for-like replacement available for next season, and everyone knows it.
That leverage only grows as more of the 2026 grid firms up ahead of the new chassis and power unit regs. Teams are closing their loops. Top-line drivers aren’t just signing for next season; they’re signing for the first year of a new era. Russell, sitting fourth in the standings with six rounds to go and hunting a season finish that reflects his form, is exactly the profile you don’t leave dangling if you’re Mercedes. Max Verstappen, 36 points ahead, remains the benchmark, but Russell is keeping Mercedes in the fight when it matters.
As for the noise around supposed friction between Russell and team boss Toto Wolff — fuelled by Ralf Schumacher’s suggestion the relationship has cooled — Steiner isn’t buying it. He pointed to the long runway Wolff gave Russell’s career from the outset. This looks and feels like hard-nosed bargaining, not a broken partnership. There’s also a process at play: Russell’s manager, Harry Soden, is handling the sharp edges so the day-to-day driver-team dynamic doesn’t suffer. Grown-up stuff, in other words.
Wolff, for his part, isn’t playing the drama card. Asked in Singapore where things stand, he kept it matter-of-fact. “Good things take a while,” he said. “It’s about the detail, not the big topics.” That’s typically Toto: calm, deliberate, and allergic to adding fuel.
Read between the lines and you get the shape of the negotiation. Russell wants commitment that stretches beyond 2026, into the meat of the new regulations. Mercedes want to leave themselves enough room to move if the market detonates — if a Verstappen scenario ever becomes real, or if Antonelli’s rise dictates a different configuration later in the decade. Steiner cheekily described Antonelli as Wolff’s “favourite project,” and the implication was clear: the team has a long-term plan, but it can’t ignore the form of the guy delivering right now.
So where does this land? Somewhere sensible. Mercedes value stability heading into a rules change, and Russell has earned the status to demand it. If there’s a hold-up, it’s likely contract length, options, and exit clauses — the invisible stuff that decides who actually has the power when the music stops after 2026.
There’s another wrinkle Steiner flagged: should Russell roll the dice on a shorter deal to keep doors open, the leverage could flip later. If, in a hypothetical 2027, Red Bull become the destination and Russell wants that seat, it’s Red Bull who dictate terms. There’s no guarantee of machinery, either. That’s why drivers try to lock down security when they’re hot.
For now, Russell keeps doing the easiest and most persuasive thing a driver can do in a contract year: win. His Singapore drive was the sort of authoritative performance that resets conversations. It also makes Mercedes’ path clearer. You don’t overthink a driver who’s taken the reins of a front-running operation and is still only 27.
It’s negotiation season, so everyone’s playing a hand. Russell’s just happens to be better than most. And Mercedes? They’re smart enough to know when a hand’s worth calling.
