Toto Wolff Admits George Russell Struggled to Accept Kimi Antonelli’s Blistering Start to 2026

• Toto Wolff says George Russell found it “difficult to cope” when Kimi Antonelli won five races in a row at the start of the 2026 season
• The Mercedes boss made the comments in an interview with Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle, set to air Sunday morning before the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia
• Russell has cut his championship deficit to 66 points after winning in Baku, with the title fight now heading to Sepang

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Wolff Opens Up on Mercedes’ Title Fight Behind Closed Doors

Toto Wolff has revealed that George Russell found it “difficult to cope” with Kimi Antonelli’s form at the start of the 2026 season, after his young teammate won five grands prix in a row.

The Mercedes team principal spoke to Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle in an interview airing Sunday morning ahead of lights out at 8am in Malaysia, where the Bahrain Grand Prix has been relocated to the Sepang International Circuit this year.

A Difficult Reality to Accept

Russell arrived in 2026 as the favourite for the Drivers’ Championship. Antonelli had other ideas, stunning his teammate by winning five consecutive races in the opening quarter of the season.

An engine failure at the Canadian Grand Prix compounded Russell’s troubles. He managed only two podiums between that race and the August summer break. His form has turned around in recent rounds, highlighted by a lights-to-flag victory last time out in Baku, a result that cut his gap to Antonelli at the top of the standings to 66 points heading into this weekend.

Wolff told Brundle that Russell was in “rocket mode” at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix but had faced tough spells across the year.

“He gets down. He’s someone that’s very emotional in a different way to an Italian driver as an example. They’ve all been different, the drivers that we had in the team,” Wolff said.

“He gets down and it’s difficult to cope, particularly when you have a 19-year-old coming into the team and it looks so easy.”

Where the Title Fight Stands

Antonelli’s early run of five straight wins built him a lead that reached 81 points before Baku. Russell’s victory there pulled that gap back to 66, with Antonelli on 302 points to Russell’s 236 heading into the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Hamilton sits third on 199 points for Ferrari, with Leclerc fifth on 179, meaning the championship fight itself remains a two-way battle between the Mercedes pairing.

Managing Two Mercedes Juniors

Wolff described Antonelli as a driver who can “capture an audience,” and said the pressure that creates for Russell is unlike anything he faced earlier in his career.

“Kimi is a natural that is able to capture an audience and then this is the season you have to deliver [if you are Russell] – you are the candidate for winning the championship,” Wolff said.

“Suddenly things are different. Your teammate is so competitive, which you kind of, rationally get but it came as a surprise how competitive he was.

“I think George is in a place where that is the situation. He has a 20-year-old teammate that is one of the best rookies that has ever been.

“He needs to fight him to beat him. I think he has now settled into this reality of ‘this is going to be really hard because he’s so good’. That I think we kind of figured out together.”

Drawing on the Hamilton-Rosberg Years

A Mercedes driver is on course to win the Drivers’ Championship for the first time after Lewis Hamilton’s record-equalling seventh world title in 2020. Wolff said managing the fight between Russell and Antonelli draws on lessons he learned handling the rivalry between Hamilton and Nico Rosberg from 2013 to 2016.

“I’m 10 years older with 10 years more experience, with a different line-up. Today we have two proper Mercedes juniors,” he said.

“George has been with us since he was 17, Kimi since he was 11. That’s very different to Nico and Lewis that joined the team pretty much before I did, so the difference is to really leave no situation not discussed.

“What is it we’re going to do if that happens? What are we going to do if that doesn’t happen? While acknowledging, at the same time that as a team, we can’t control everything. The moment the lights go green, they drive the car, but we do what we want to do it in the best possible way for themselves and for the team. Fundamentally, it’s all about talking through the scenarios before.”

No Favourites in the Title Fight

Russell, 28, and Antonelli, 20, sit on opposite ends of their Formula 1 careers, and Brundle asked Wolff whether it would suit Mercedes commercially if the Italian teenager won the title instead.

“It’s a difficult one to say because obviously I need to look after the interest of the team and the interests of the team and its philosophy depends on how we are running this. What is the mindset that we’re having here? I can never, and the team would never, favour a driver. First, how would you even technically do it?” Wolff said.

“But the point is, if I do that, I would lose my own conscience in this. We’ve never brought an upgrade before the other guy had it didn’t over the last 10 or more years. They are both given same opportunity. May the best man win.

“If it’s George it is a story to George Russell won his first championship. If it’s Kimi then it’s a different story. It’s this amazing super kid that won his first championship.”

The Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia marks Formula 1’s first visit to the Sepang International Circuit in nine years, with Sunday’s race set to go some way toward settling whether Russell can close out the remaining gap or whether Antonelli extends his advantage in his rookie season.

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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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