George Russell vows not to let difficult season define his career ahead of Mexican GP
George Russell said at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez on the eve of the Mexican Grand Prix that he will not allow a challenging Formula One season to define his career and insisted he still has time to return to title contention. His remarks came as team-mate Kimi Antonelli can secure the world championship at the weekend if he finishes ninth or higher.
Russell, 28, has been outperformed this year by his 20-year-old Mercedes team-mate Antonelli, who has nine wins compared with Russell’s three. The British driver opened the year with a victory at the Australian Grand Prix and claimed commanding wins in Austria and Baku, but has struggled for consistency adapting to the energy-management demands and the tyres used this season. Antonelli responded with a run of five successive wins that handed him the championship lead he has held since, a pattern Russell acknowledged has been difficult to accept. Russell said he plans to use the experience to come back stronger in 2027.
“I’ve probably learned more about myself this year than I would have liked to, in all honesty,” he said at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. “You know, 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. "But I remind myself I’m 28 years old. I see Lewis [Hamilton] still competing extremely well at 41 and Fernando [Alonso] at 45. Lewis won the majority of his titles in his thirties and this year is absolutely not going to define my career as a whole.”
Russell addressed the season’s setbacks directly in a longer interview, saying: “It’s not going to break me. If anything, it’s going to make me stronger,” he said. “I’ve been pretty proud of my resilience and how I’ve sort of bounced back from very tough moments. “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. “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. By no means the end of my journey, I have still got a good 12 to 15 years left in me.”
Championship positions remain tightly contested behind Antonelli: Russell sits one point clear of Lewis Hamilton and six points ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as they fight for second in the standings. Off-track, the Cadillac team withdrew Valtteri Bottas from his media duties on Thursday in Mexico, saying he was “unwell” and that “the team has taken the decision to allow him a day of rest, to support his recovery”.
Antonelli did not take part in media duties on Thursday as the team said he was unwell with a “viral illness”. He was given leave by the FIA to not take part, as the team noted, as “a precaution to give him the chance to rest ahead of the weekend”. He is expected to be in the car for free practice on Friday.