‘This year won’t break me’
George Russell has insisted his career will ‘not be defined’ and he ‘won’t be broken’ by failing to secure a maiden Formula 1 world title this season.
The British driver entered the campaign as clear favourite for the drivers’ championship having impressed in a back-of-the-grid Williams to begin his career, before continuing to catch the eye when stepping up to Mercedes as the team struggled to replicate previous dominance during the ground-effect era.
But that favouritism hasn’t become reality, with Silver Arrows team-mate Kimi Antonelli on the verge of becoming F1’s youngest champion at this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix – a race Russell has to win to have any hope of delaying the inevitable.
And while poor reliability has played its part in stopping Russell from putting down a genuine title challenge to the Italian, his own performances have sometimes failed to live up to the mark Antonelli has set.
While Antonelli has picked up nine race wins in his second year, Russell has managed only three despite winning in dominant fashion at the season-opening Australian GP but speaking at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, he pointed to former team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso as proof that the failure to take the drivers’ crown this term doesn’t mean the dream is over.
“I’ve probably learned more about myself this year than I would have liked to, in all honesty,” Russell conceded.
“The highs and lows you go through in sport are immense and that’s because we all care so much for what we’re doing.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images
“But I remind myself, I’m 28 years old. I see Lewis [Hamilton] still competing extremely well at 41 and Fernando [Alonso] at 44. You know, Lewis won the majority of his titles in his 30s and this year is absolutely not going to define my career as a whole. It’s not going to break me. If anything, it’s going to make me stronger.
“I’ve been pretty proud of my resilience and how I’ve bounced back from very tough moments and actually, through my lowest points of this season, I’ve generally bounced back really, really strong – and then I had another bad race after the good one.
“So maybe it’s something I need to analyse as well, because I always perform best after my worst races, maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe there’s something in it, but I’ve been racing more years of my life than I haven’t and I’ve had more successful years than relative failures.
“And I don’t think any athlete, no matter how great, has every single year of their career performing at their highest level. Unfortunately, this year for me has come at maybe the time when I needed it most. But it’s by no means the end of my journey.
“I’ve still got a good 12 to 15 years left in me.”
Russell’s priority for remaining races
While the championship may effectively be in Antonelli’s hands, Russell is still determined to use the final races of the current campaign to overcome any issues and end the season on a high, ready for a 2027 assault.
Put to him that former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won the final three races in 2015 before going on to become champion the following season, Russell replied: “I think it is definitely important for me to try and gain some consistency.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: James Sutton / LAT Images via Getty Images
“A couple of races ago [Azerbaijan], we were on pole by eight tenths and won the race, and then last week I finished in P8. I’ve never had a season like this in my career where the performance has fluctuated so much and I know it’s in there, because you can’t deliver performances like that in Baku if you’ve so-called lost it.
“It’s just that we’re struggling to have a high hit rate. We don’t know why that is, and we’ve never had it. I’ve never had it personally before in my career, and I guess that’s probably the priority for me in these last few races.”
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