Russell to have 'deep, deep look in mirror' after Mexico City setback
George Russell said on media day for this weekend's Sao Paulo Grand Prix that he will take a "deep, deep look in the mirror" to work out how he can improve after a disappointing 2026 season, following the Mexico City Grand Prix in which he slipped to fourth in the drivers' championship.
The Mercedes driver has watched team-mate Kimi Antonelli dominate on his way to becoming the youngest Formula 1 champion in history, while Russell has won only three races compared with the Italian's nine and began the year as the championship favourite. Russell said luck had not been on his side and that he wanted to make sure he did everything he could to understand why he had lacked pace.
Russell and his team analysed the season and concluded he had had a trouble-free run in only six of the 20 races this year. "These issues constantly keep popping up but unfortunately this always seems like it's on my side of the garage," he said. "We concluded we've only had six races from the 20 where we've had a clean weekend. So to think 14 of those weekends have had issues is unbelievable. We need to look to understand why that is, if there's something we are overlooking or if it's just pure misfortune. At the moment it does seem like it's more misfortune than anything. In a normal season you might have two weekends or three weekends where there are issues. We've had three quarters of this season and that has been incredibly unfortunate."
Russell said it was a fresh technical problem, not Antonelli's title, that prompted him to miss media duties after the Mexico City race. He started second to Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari but suffered a loss of power on the run to the first corner when "the electrical part of the power-unit did not reply properly." Swamped by the field, he collided with Isack Hadjar's Red Bull at Turn Six, earned a 10-second penalty and finished sixth.
The Mexico City result dropped Russell from second to fourth in the drivers' championship, leaving him behind Antonelli, Max Verstappen and Hamilton. Russell described his reaction to the weekend and his reasons for stepping away from immediate media obligations on the Sao Paulo media day.
"In racing you always pick yourself back up and for me the best way to pick myself back up was getting out of there," Russell said on media day for this weekend's Sao Paulo Grand Prix. "It was as simple as that, really. I was just very upset with missing out on the chance of a good result because the championship for me was already over but I just couldn't believe how things had panned out again. In that moment, yeah, I just wanted to get out of there. I think I'm 99% of the time a true professional and I try not to spit my dummy out, but sometimes missing out on doing the press – OK, it's not ideal but not the end of the world. Moments like that you don't really want to deal with it."
Russell delivered these comments on media day ahead of this weekend's Sao Paulo Grand Prix.