Russell reveals what was ‘keeping me up at night’ with Antonelli on verge of title

George Russell has revealed an aspect of his F1 title fight with Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli that was keeping him up at night.

Russell must finish inside the top eight positions if Antonelli wins on Sunday to keep the championship alive heading to Mexico.

George Russell concedes “the thing that was keeping me up at night”

Russell’s title bid was given a boost with a strong weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but he has since fallen back in the title race. Arriving in the United States, the margin was 102 points, meaning that Antonelli could seal the title with a victory this weekend.

In reality, Russell has been on the ropes for the majority of the year, with Antonelli responding to a dominant success for the Brit in Australia, with a run of five straight victories from China to Monaco – a streak which could have extended further had it not been for a reliability issue in Barcelona.

With just three wins to Antonelli’s eight, Russell could have been forgiven for having nightmares about his teammate.

“In terms of my mentality this season, my view of the championship has been up and down,” Russell said.

“I think early in the year when I had a big point deficit, the thing that was keeping me up at night was my lack of performance and thinking like, how am I going to improve my performance? What do I need from a car? What does the car need from my driving, rather than [is] my opportunity maybe going amiss?”

Having closed the gap slowly but relatively steadily in the middle of the season, Russell’s efforts were quickly undone by back-to-back wins for Antonelli in Monza and Madrid, with the former achieved despite taking a back-of-the-grid penalty for an engine change.

“I came from 70 points down to within 25 points post Silverstone, and then the gap extended, and then Baku happened,” Russell added.

“That felt pretty, pretty big in terms of my chances again, and then of course, one week later, I was sort of kicked down again, and salt added to the wound with the grip penalty in Singapore.”

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Although the championship remains mathematically on, Russell appears to have accepted the long-odds nature of his chances.

“This season just hasn’t meant to be,” he conceded.

“I’m not bitter about it. I’ll look back on the areas I could have done better and should have done better, as opposed to things that have been out of my control that have gone against me.

“I’d say, as much has gone against me in terms of bad luck, there’s been as much of my performances that haven’t been to the scratch that I know I’m capable of. So yeah, that’s the reality of it.”

Asked if there was anything that he has learned from this fight that he hadn’t been aware of before, Russell said: “No, not really, because I fought for championships in my junior days.

“I knew how I wanted to approach it, and that was more by a race-by-race basis.

“But as I said earlier in the year, when the performance wasn’t there, I wasn’t thinking about the championship, I was solely focused on, on the performance.

“This year has been a real test of my character and resilience through the tough races, the misfortune, and I guess having to look at myself in the mirror and think, how do I want to bounce back from these moments?

“Do I want to cry about it and let it impact me negatively, or do I want to bounce back and fight and rectify it? I think that’s going to help me be a better person and better driver over the course of the next 10-15 years of my career.”

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