Who slept worst last night: George Russell
I try to choose my subjects for this column a little more imaginatively than simply asking who had the worst time at the most recent grand prix. After all, I do not want to bore our readers by writing about Lance Stroll & Co. every single week.
That is why I had not really intended to write about George Russell. After Suzuka and Barcelona, colleagues of mine have already made him sleep badly twice this year. And yet, this time, I simply cannot look past him. Even though, for a moment, I was tempted to take on Flavio Briatore instead, after his bizarre appearance in Friday’s team principals’ press conference.
If Briatore genuinely believes that one of the appeal judges was biased, fair enough. But to throw an allegation of that magnitude into the public arena of an FIA press conference, maximising the potential reputational damage to both the FIA and McLaren in the process – in the spirit of “something will stick” – is a style of doing business that, even in Formula 1’s shark tank, no longer fits the ethical standards of 2026.
I am quite sure that, had the roles been reversed, a gentleman such as Andrea Stella would have raised conspiracy theories of that kind in a more private setting first, before seeking the maximum possible level of publicity.
But never mind. Flavio is Flavio, his life’s work is beyond dispute, and insignificant keyboard warriors such as myself should probably be grateful that, in an increasingly homogenised Formula 1, characters like him still exist. For better or worse. And I stress: I mean that entirely without irony. Really.
So, George Russell. Again.
If you imagine a parallel universe without Kimi Antonelli, life would be perfectly fine for the 28-year-old. He was the standout driver of an exceptionally strong Formula 2 generation that also featured a certain Lando Norris, who just happens to be the reigning Formula 1 world champion. Mercedes, as predicted, has developed the strongest overall package under the new regulations, Russell would be leading the championship comfortably, and he would be well on his way to finally becoming world champion.
If only Antonelli were not there.
Because the now 20-year-old Italian’s extraordinary charge through the field at Monza was a watershed moment for Russell, and I think he is only just beginning to realise it.
There was a moment in the FIA press conference after the race that offered a glimpse of that. Antonelli had not even arrived yet, still working his way through one triumphant winner’s interview after another for the television broadcasters, while Russell and third-placed Max Verstappen were already sitting inside the air-conditioned room at the back of the Monza paddock that usually serves as the setting for the FIA’s official post-race media sessions.
Moderator Tom Clarkson pointed out Russell’s now 66-point deficit and asked the Mercedes driver how he assessed his chances of somehow still becoming Formula 1 World Champion in 2026. Russell became reflective. He said things such as: “Definitely Kimi’s in control of it”, “I’m not even thinking about a comeback”, and that turning things around would be “exceptionally challenging”.
George Russel came second to team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who started 19th
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
And, above all: “I’m just sort of accepting that it is what it is and I’m just going to enjoy it from here on in and try and win as many races as possible.”
Boom.
It is deeply embedded in the DNA of almost every racing driver to believe that he is the greatest and the best. Even when the outside world reaches an entirely different conclusion, racing drivers have a habit of finding explanations for defeat that preserve their own version of reality.
“Yes, the other guy won. But if this, that and the other had gone just a little differently for me, everything would have been completely different.”
Russell’s problem is this: At Monza, he did an almost optimal job from start to finish. He made no meaningful mistakes, he was not sabotaged by his team, and he did not fall victim to any external circumstances. Even the call not to pit under the VSC, which briefly injected fresh momentum into the race as Russell managed, for a while at least, to hang on in his yo-yo battle with Antonelli, was objectively a logical one.
What remains, when everything else is stripped away, is this: Nothing and nobody could have stopped Antonelli on that historic Sunday in the Parco di Monza.
It was one of those special days on which the wheat is separated from the chaff and something genuinely great begins to grow. Like Monte Carlo 1984 with Ayrton Senna, Spa 1992 with Michael Schumacher, or Interlagos 2016 with Verstappen.
Antonelli’s performance was so exceptional that even Russell’s racing-driver DNA, operating in full self-defence mode, could no longer come up with a plausible explanation for how the guy in the other car might somehow have been beatable under different circumstances.
Kimi Antonelli has been compared to Ayrton Senna by more than one F1 pundit
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
This may be the point at which Russell has to confront the possibility that fulfilling his lifelong dream of lifting the World Championship trophy in the pinnacle of motorsport is going to be very, very difficult for as long as he shares a team with this carefree Italian, whose natural talent Nico Rosberg is now not alone in comparing with Senna’s.
And yet, it is precisely Rosberg’s story that offers Russell perhaps the last silver lining on the horizon.
At the end of 2015, there were very few people left who believed the German could still break Lewis Hamilton‘s supremacy in equal machinery. I myself wrote at the time that Rosberg would probably never become world champion. I was wrong.
There are very few experts who, in the historical context, would describe Rosberg as the greater talent than Hamilton. Seven world championship titles tell their own story. But at the end of 2015, Rosberg went away, looked inward, somehow managed to move the limits of his own ability a little further – and in 2016, through a memorable feat of determination and with a little of the luck that tends to favour the deserving, he became Formula 1 world champion after all.
Perhaps Russell should invite Rosberg for a glass of Lambrusco and ask him how exactly he managed it.
Because extraordinary achievements require extraordinary performances, and Rosberg managed to produce one at least once in his career. Against all odds.
There can be no doubt that Russell is one of the best drivers of his generation. Over the next year or two, we will find out whether that is enough.
Formula 1 history is full of exceptional talents who never became world champion. Stirling Moss, for example. Ronnie Peterson. Stefan Bellof. Or, in more recent times, Jean Alesi and Juan Pablo Montoya.
Could George Russell’s career mirror that of Giancarlo Fisichella?
Photo by: Motorsport Images
Giancarlo Fisichella, a fellow Italian, was also regarded for many years as an outstanding talent. In the winter of 2004/05, when his Renault team had finally given him a car capable of winning, I wrote the cover story for a print magazine – a season preview featuring the leading contenders for the world championship.
After the magazine came out, Fisichella’s then-manager Enrico Zanarini called me. He was furious because, of all people, Fisichella’s team-mate Fernando Alonso, still largely an unknown quantity at the time, had made it onto the cover. Nor, for that matter, had Fisichella made it into the smaller images featuring the other championship candidates, where we had instead chosen drivers such as Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.
In the end, Alonso really did become World Champion. And Fisichella went down in grand prix history not as a champion, but as an eternal, unfulfilled talent.
Russell now finds himself in a similar position.
When we look back in 20 years’ time, will we see a career like Fisichella’s – outstanding talent, but ultimately no title? Or will Russell find a way through and become a Rosberg after all?
If not, one of my colleagues in the newsroom may turn out to have been right when he joked yesterday: “Soon it’ll be Russell doing the interviews instead of David Coulthard. Same career path.”
There is one thing, however, that nobody can take away from Russell.
Sportingly, he may have been one of the losers of the 2026 Italian Grand Prix. On a human level, he was one of the great winners of Sunday afternoon.
George Russell admitted his team-mate is “performing incredibly well”
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Nobody would have held it against him had he been somewhat restrained during the obligatory applause for Antonelli on the podium. After all, he had just experienced one of the most painful humiliations of his motorsport career.
But Russell endured the boos and whistles – which the Italian crowd really could have done without – like a gentleman, and showed just what a fine sportsman he is.
Antonelli deserved to have this championship under control, he said. “He’s performing incredibly well.”
And even when Russell briefly allowed himself to wonder how the race might have unfolded without the VSC, he immediately added: “But, you know, it takes nothing away from Kimi’s drive altogether.”
Perhaps he was not the champion holding the trophy on Sunday. But he was unquestionably a sportsman who knows how to deal with painful defeats in the way a sportsman should.
Flavio Briatore could take a leaf out of his book.
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