George Russell plans season review after championship setback
After falling to fourth in the standings, the Mercedes driver says he will examine what he could have done better and why his season brought so many troubled weekends.
George Russell says he will examine his own performance after a difficult 2026 Formula 1 season, following a Mexico City Grand Prix setback that dropped him from second to fourth in the drivers’ championship. Speaking on media day for this weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver said he wanted to understand what he could have done better, even as he questioned whether his run of misfortune reflected problems within his control. BBC Sport reported his remarks.
“Is all of the misfortune truly misfortune? Or is it actually things in our control that could have been better?” Russell said. He described a season in which team-mate Kimi Antonelli, now champion, had won nine races to Russell’s three, despite Russell starting the year as championship favourite. Russell said he intended to take a “deep, deep look in the mirror”, then pick himself up and move on.
Russell says only six weekends were trouble-free
Russell said an analysis with his team found he had a clean weekend in only six of the season’s 20 races. He said they wanted to find out why issues kept recurring, adding that the problems seemed to affect his side of the garage. Russell described the pattern as unusually frequent compared with the two or three troubled weekends he said might occur in a normal season. The causes have not been independently established in the reporting.
In Mexico City, Russell said an electrical part of the power unit failed to respond properly on the run to the first corner, costing him positions. He later collided with Isack Hadjar at Turn Six and received a 10-second penalty. Russell finished sixth, falling behind Antonelli, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in the standings.
Russell said the latest technical problem, rather than Antonelli’s title win, was why he skipped media duties after the Mexico City race. He said he was upset at losing the chance of a good result and left because that was the best way to recover in the moment.
Antonelli says he is learning from Russell’s qualifying
Antonelli has also pointed to a strength in his team-mate’s driving. Speaking on the Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show, he praised Russell’s ability to find extra pace in qualifying and said he was trying to learn how Russell extracts more performance from himself and the car during a session, according to Motorsport, republished by Yahoo Sports. That assessment offers a glimpse of the expertise Antonelli wants to build on as the drivers prepare for the next season.
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Sources and context
- Sao Paulo Grand Prix: George Russell to have 'deep, deep look in mirror' after championship disappointmentBBC Sport
- Kimi Antonelli admits George Russell still holds one massive advantage over himMotorsport (republished by Yahoo Sports)
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.