George Russell isn’t ruing his misfortune after his latest retirement in Sepang last weekend.
The Mercedes driver will take a grid drop penalty this weekend as Mercedes will fit a new power unit to his car. Russell has fallen 84 points behind his team mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli at the top of the championship standings.But he feels his performance this year is a significant part of the reason why his championship hopes have faded.
“I don’t feel my performance has been good enough this year, independent of good luck and bad luck,” said Russell. “I feel that whenever I do have bad luck, of course I can be disappointed about it, but I want to focus on the things I can control first.”
Russell beat Antonelli 21-3 in qualifying sessions for grands prix last season. But Antonelli has held the upper hand this year and leads Russell 9-7 ahead of this weekend’s race (see graph below).
“All of my years in Formula 1, I’ve always had a great record against my team mates,” said Russell. “Especially in qualifying I think it was sort of like 80-20 in my qualifying records. This year I’m, I don’t know, 40-60 or maybe even less.
“So that really shows I haven’t done a good enough job this season, independent of the good luck or the bad luck. So I guess that’s why it maybe isn’t affecting me as much. As it would in different circumstances. And, you know, every weekend I just wake up, look at myself in the mirror and think what I can do better.”
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Russell expects he will have to take another engine penalty before the year is over.
“Obviously, if you could choose where to take the penalty in the season, this would be probably the second-bottom of the list after Monaco,” he said. “But unfortunately, just with how things have panned out, we have no choice but to take it here.
“Also because it’s so early, we’ve still got seven races to go, we’ll probably have to take another one down the line as well. So obviously it’s not an ideal situation.”
Russell vs Antonelli in 2026
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