George Russell believes two key aspects of this year’s cars are the reason why he hasn’t been able to perform as well as his team mate.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli goes into this weekend’s race virtually guaranteed to seal the championship.

Russell began the season with victory in Australia. But he has only won twice more since then while Antonelli has amassed nine wins.

“I think there’s just a few factors with the cars this year that potentially favour or hinder a certain driving style,” Russell explained

“I’ve always been a driver that focuses on the mid to the exit of the corners, which often means I’m on the throttle earlier than most. And with these new power units, that means I am spending more energy and it is sometimes not the most efficient way to drive for the power unit.

“Secondly, the tyre pressures this year, especially on the rear, have been very, very high. Pirelli are taking a few PSI margin, especially in the rear axle. So again, that sort of has hindered me a little bit by pushing the exits. The rear tyre can’t cope with it as well, and there’s been a bit of a hindrance on the power unit side.

“So it was kind of these two factors that just really hampered my natural driving style, and I’d say that’s probably been the biggest thing of the season.”

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Although Russell has had a handful of strong weekends, he has also struggled on other occasions.

“I came out of Monaco earlier this year and it was a very difficult weekend for me and I went to Barcelona and was quickest in every session and put it on pole,” he said. “I went to Austria, the next race, was on pole again and then a few races later I was qualifying down in P5 and P6.

“In Baku, on pole by eight tenths, then in Malaysia I qualified I think was P8, maybe, [seventh] in Malaysia.”

Russell said his results were more consistent in other seasons when he had a less competitive car.

“I feel in the years gone by I had a pretty high hit-rate of reaching the potential of the car and maybe at the end of the season there were four or five races I feel that were not maximised. I remember in 2022, we finished in the top five more than any other driver in the whole season, I think it was 19 from 22 races and that was the third-best car on the grid.

“Now this season we have the best car and I’m not able to achieve these results. So it’s quite strange and certainly scratching our head a little bit and it’s definitely not through a lack of trying.”

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Although he is on the verge of losing the championship to his team mate, Russell said the relationship between him and Antonelli remains positive.

“On a personal level, Kimi is obviously a great guy and has lots of energy,” he said. “We’ve had no reason this year not to continue a good relationship.

“I think a lot of these rivalries start because of on-track incidents or actions. The truth is he’s been at a higher level than me this year so we’ve not really been in that situation too often, we have had one or two races.

“When it comes to the race in itself, we sort of keep ourselves to ourselves and work with our individual engineers to try and get the most out of it.”

With his championship defeat virtually assured, Russell said he would take no consolation from claiming the runner-up spot.

“I think for every driver on the grid, there’s only one position that matters, and it’s P1. To be best at the rest is not really something you dream of as a kid.

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“Of course, I want to finish as high as possible. I want win as many races as possible, but what’s more important to me is to finish the season on a positive momentum rather than necessarily that final order.

“If I finish second, third, fourth, fifth, I will [only] lose sleep or gain sleep based on the performances as opposed to that. As long as it’s not P1, in this sport, it’s kind of that or nothing really.”

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