George Russell believes that the difficulties faced in the 2026 Formula 1 season can turn into an advantage in upcoming battles. After 12 races, the Mercedes driver is 59 points behind his Mercedes teammate, the Italian Kimi Antonelli, who has six wins compared to the Briton’s two.
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Russell started the championship by winning in Australia but struggled to get the most out of the W17. A problem with his driving style affected his performance, while power unit software failures hampered the weekends at Silverstone and Spa.
In the Netherlands, Russell responded with a dominant Sprint win and started second in the GP. However, he finished the main race in third, behind Antonelli, who was second. Thus, the championship gap remained at 59 points. Despite this, Russell believes he has progressed in understanding the car and adapting his driving style:
“I think the truth is that, obviously, Kimi has done an incredible job this season, and clearly we both have very different driving styles,” Russell told the press. “That was already evident last year, and it’s working very well for him with this car and these tires, and I’m just trying to implement something similar in my driving style.”
“I kind of describe it as: if you change your golf swing, you probably take half a step back before making those improvements, and I think the break just allowed me to put those learnings deep in my mind, come [to the Dutch GP] and not obsess over what I want to try to achieve with the car and tires, but knowing deep down what I need to achieve and just driving more freely. I’m really, really proud of that because it’s like building this toolbox of experience for me, which will allow me to be even better in the coming years.”
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Russell highlighted that the season also had good moments in Barcelona and Austria but was hampered by power unit problems and below-expected performance in Hungary. “Who knows, maybe next year the technology will be completely different again. That’s the beauty and challenge of Formula 1. Every year is different. I’ll just take it race by race.”
“I’m not going to come out of [the weekend in Zandvoort] and say all the problems are solved. I believe I made some big changes before the weekend in Barcelona, and I had good races in Barcelona and Austria. Then, at Silverstone and Spa, we had the power unit problem, and Budapest was simply a not very competitive weekend on my part. So, I think we just haven’t had a smooth run this season.”
For the Brit, the pressure for the fight also changed after the break. Russell says he is more relaxed and intends to enjoy the races regardless of the current position in the championship. “It hasn’t been a clean season by any means, with all the problems we’ve had. But I feel that after the break, I’m much more relaxed. I don’t feel like I have anything to lose. The pressure is gone. I’m just going to go out, enjoy it, and I don’t even feel like I’m really in a fight.”
“It’s not mine to lose; it’s mine to win. So that’s the mindset I have, and I feel that will help me. I’m just enjoying driving,” the driver concluded.
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