Britain’s George Russell enjoyed a positive start to his 2024 Formula One World Championship campaign after completing a promising pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit.

The 26-year-old, who will enter his third season with Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One™ Team this year, set out to establish a strong performance baseline at the Sakhir-based venue in the test’s early stages.

George was the first driver on track on Day One and ended the opening morning with the sixth-fastest time, a 1:34.230, before continuing to run in the afternoon where he prioritised data collection and gathering.

This running included a full race simulation and by completing 122 laps – 660 kilometres – George ended the day 12th, shaving 0.121 seconds off his previous best time from the day.

George handed the cockpit of the W15 to team-mate, Lewis Hamilton, for Thursday, but got back behind the wheel on Friday afternoon.

As the test wound down, George began to target performance running and continually improved his pace lap-by-lap as the session edged ever-closer to its conclusion.

In the final five minutes, George leapt forward with a 1:30.368 run to end the final day of pre-season testing with the second-fastest time, trailing pacesetter, Charles Leclerc, by a mere 0.046 seconds.

With testing complete, George will return to action on March 2 for the first race of the 2024 season – the Bahrain Grand Prix.

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George Russell, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One™ Team driver:

"We’ve had a solid three days here in Bahrain. We managed to get through all of our planned programme, despite the stoppages. The car has been handling well and correlates to the feeling we had on the simulator ahead of coming here. We’ve got a very good base to build from.

"We’re aware that there’s a lot more lap time to find. We knew that would be the case ahead of the test, and Red Bull are looking very strong once again. Nevertheless, I’m confident that we’re in a much better place than we were 12 months ago. The team at Brackley and Brixworth have done a great job to get us into this position and with a car that is a step in the right direction. We now need to focus on firstly getting the most out of the package we have and secondly, adding more downforce and trying to close that gap.