George Russell Says He Is in a ‘Very Weird State of Mind’ as Kimi Antonelli Pulls 68 Points Clear

• George Russell trails his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 68 points and has slipped to third in the standings, behind Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.
• The Briton admits he is in “a very, very weird state of mind” and calls the run of misfortune “an incredibly difficult pill to swallow.”
• He insists his self-belief is intact: “I still very much believe in myself and know what I can do.”

For years, George Russell told anyone who would listen that he just needed the car. Give him the machinery, he argued, and the results would follow. In 2026 Mercedes finally handed him a car capable of winning the world championship. What has happened since has been, in his own words, painful to live through.

Sitting 68 points behind his 19-year-old team-mate Kimi Antonelli, and now third in the standings behind Lewis Hamilton, Russell has done something unusual for a Formula 1 driver. He has spoken openly about how strange and unsettling this season has felt, admitting he is in “a very, very weird state of mind.”

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The cruellest version of a good season

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from being fast and still losing. Russell has not lacked pace. He has lacked fortune, and the combination has gnawed at him. Speaking to reporters after a difficult weekend in Monaco, he tried to make sense of a campaign that has not matched the speed under him.

“I am in a very, very weird state of mind because I’ve had very low moments in my career where maybe I’ve had a run of two or three bad races on my own personal performance, but I’ve never had a run of bad luck such as this,” he said.

Then came the line that captured the whole season. “It didn’t happen when the car was P7 two years ago, or a P3 or P4 car last year, and now I’ve got the car, it feels very painful, but there is still a long way to go.”

A litany of things outside his control

The detail behind the deficit explains the emotion. Russell finished second to Antonelli in China, then watched the gap stretch with a run of races that went wrong in ways he could not influence. He was leading in Canada when his power unit failed. He was running strongly in Japan when a safety car appeared at the worst possible moment, seconds after he had pitted. In Monaco a contentious pit-lane penalty spiralled into a far more punishing drive-through after his mechanics began changing tyres too early, dropping him out of the points entirely.

“I know that qualifying was a bad day for me, I accept that,” he said, “but the result of the last two races, I wish I could take some responsibility for the car breaking down in Canada, or the penalties, but it is completely outside of my control, and that is an incredibly difficult pill to swallow.”

He has tried to keep perspective by imagining the season that might have been. “I don’t believe in good or bad luck, but when I look at the season as a whole, I was leading the race in Canada and broke down,” he said. “I could have been on the podium in Monaco, and zero points. I was leading in Japan, and the safety car came out 10 seconds after a pit-stop. That’s not a lot, and the whole season could look totally different with 70 more points.”

The team-mate on the run of his life

What sharpens the pain is the figure on the other side of the garage. Antonelli, still a teenager, has been on a streak that would test the composure of any established driver. Five consecutive victories have turned a promising rookie campaign into a championship lead, and they have arrived while Russell, the senior man, watches the points he expected to be scoring slip away.

It is a delicate situation inside any team: the established driver who finally has a title-worthy car, beaten not by an outside rival but by the youngster in matching overalls. Russell has been careful not to direct his frustration at Antonelli, framing the gap instead as a product of circumstance rather than a verdict on his own ability.

Holding on to belief

For all the candour about his headspace, Russell was adamant that he has not stopped backing himself. “I still very much believe in myself and know what I can do, and we’re not even 30 per cent of the way through, but there have been a lot of points down the drain,” he said.

“I still very much believe in myself and that we’re going to be fighting for race wins until the end of the year, but right now, it is tough.”

That balance, between honesty about the present and faith in the future, is the tightrope every driver in a slump has to walk. The season is young, the car is quick, and Russell knows that a reversal of fortune could close the gap as quickly as it opened. The question is whether his belief can outlast the run of misfortune long enough for the results to catch up with the speed.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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