George Russell casts honest Kimi Antonelli Mercedes rivalry verdict

George Russell admitted that there has been “no reason” to strain his relationship with Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli in F1 2026.

According to Russell himself, he has not been at the level to spark the kind of incidents which trigger teammate rivalries.

George Russell not been at Kimi Antonelli rivalry level

The championship-level Mercedes car which the Brit had been waiting for finally arrived in F1 2026, but it is Antonelli who is on the verge of becoming world champion.

A P9 result in Mexico this weekend will seal the deal.

Ahead of the event, Russell was asked whether he has been able to keep his relationship with his younger teammate on a good footing this year.

Minus a bit of elbows-out racing in Montreal, this has proven a relatively calm partnership, with Russell pointing to his own struggles.

“On a personal level, Kimi is obviously a great guy and 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, and 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’ve had one or two races, and 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.”

Antonelli is poised to replace Sebastian Vettel as Formula 1’s new youngest world champion of all-time, and by quite some margin.

Like Russell, Antonelli is a graduate of the Mercedes academy, and has bounced back in spectacular fashion from a rookie campaign which brought its challenges.

After the United States Grand Prix, it was put to Mercedes team principal and co-owner Toto Wolff that he is responsible for Antonelli’s success story, having battled through initial scepticism and growing scrutiny last year over his call to promote Antonelli as Lewis Hamilton’s successor.

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“Thank you, but I wasn’t the one responsible for it,” he clarified. “It was teamwork. It was our junior team around Gwen [Lagrue] that discovered him when he was 11, and credit to that group that have developed him over the many years.

“I read an interview of Piero Ferrari last week where he said, ‘What a talent! He reminds him of Nikki Lauda,’ and I’m thinking, people don’t get that this is the work of nine years, the development of nine years, the hardship over nine years, the integration of the team, the working with the engineers, the 10 or more millions spent in the development of his career, of his ability, of his character, together with his parents, and it’s just not that it landed like this.

“There are many people that said last year after nine races without points he shouldn’t be in a Mercedes. People that in other teams that said he shouldn’t even be in Formula 1. The tears in Spa in parc ferme.

“All of that now is extremely satisfying to see what he’s able to deliver, how he’s working with the team, with Bono [Peter Bonington] and yielding the results.

“But it wasn’t an easy road. So yeah, I’m happy that [he is] 99.9 per cent [there to the title], still needs to finish the race in Mexico, so it’s either going to be a big tequila party, or if it’s not a tequila party, then it’s going to be caipirinha the weekend afterwards.”

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