George Russell warned as Kimi Antonelli proves he will not play number two

Tipped as the pre-season title favourite, Martin Brundle says George Russell should be concerned as Kimi Antonelli isn’t just accepting a number two role at Mercedes.

Mercedes went into the opening race of the season, the Australian Grand Prix, billed as the team to beat in Formula 1’s new battery-dominated PU era.

George Russell faces Kimi Antonelli Mercedes threat after strong start

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Russell had Antonelli’s measure throughout the weekend, aided by the Italian’s huge drive-related crash in FP3 that left Mercedes scrambling to repair his W17 in time for qualifying.

They came out 1-2 that weekend, with Russell leading the championship for the first time in his career.

But seven days later, the margins were smaller as Antonelli became the sport’s youngest-ever pole-sitter in Shanghai and followed that up with a mature drive to claim his first grand prix win.

The gap was down to four points in Russell’s favour.

Antonelli turned the form book on its head in Japan when reliability glitches – first setup and then a “bug”- put the Italian ahead of Russell. Winning back-to-back races, the 19-year-old not only became the first Italian to do so since the 50s, but also the youngest to lead the Drivers’ Championship.

He moved on to 72 points in the opening three weekends, putting him nine ahead of his teammate in a Mercedes 1-2.

The pre-season predictions that Russell would be Mercedes’ number one driver were silenced.

“If I was George,” former F1 driver Brundle told Sky’s The F1 Show podcast, “I’d be more concerned after three races than I was at the beginning of the season.

“George did all those hard yards at Williams and spent an extra year or two there, goes to Mercedes, just as they stopped dominating and has to tolerate all that.

“Now they look like they’ve got a championship car and you’d say George has got the upper hand and all of a sudden he’s got to be looking across the garage and thinking, ‘hang on a minute, this is nowhere near certain. I’ve got to beat this teenager yet’. And I think he really has.

“It’s difficult times for George and he’s got to treat Kimi Antonelli just as if he’s Lewis Hamilton in his peak and a threat for the championship.”

Even Wolff downplayed Antonelli’s title chances after his Chinese Grand Prix win, adamant the 19-year-old was not ready.

“Mistakes are gonna come. He’s just a kid, so it’s too early to even think about a championship,” insisted the Austrian.

“We have a good car that, at this stage, is capable of winning… But, at the moment, it is a car that is capable of winning. Both have equal opportunity, but so long to talk about winning championships.”

Brundle, though, reckons the way Antonelli bounced back from his huge Australian crash to win in China eight days later, speaks to his credibility as a championship contender.

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“When he crashed the car in Melbourne and came straight back, that for me is one of the most telling things that you can see in a young driver as to whether they can just get straight back on it, and he did in Melbourne,” he said.

“I remember watching on our show after China when Kimi’s dad and Toto were saying, ‘look, forget championship crusades because he’s got a lot to learn and he will make mistakes’. And I thought that tallied exactly with what I was thinking.

“George is the favourite because there will be wet days and safety car restarts and all sorts of things where George’s experience will surely play out.

“But watching Kimi in qualifying, in the races, he got lucky on the safety car in Japan, but his pace was mighty.”

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