Russell, at War With Himself: “I Had Never Fluctuated So Much”

George Russell is going through the strangest season of his career in Formula 1: the British Mercedes driver, far from settling for the role of Kimi Antonelli's wingman, has admitted that his great challenge in 2026 is not his teammate, but his own inability to maintain consistent performance, an internal battle that is costing him points and that he acknowledges he has never experienced before in his sporting trajectory.

"It is definitely important for me to try to gain some consistency, I have never had a season like this in my career in which the performance has fluctuated so much, I know it is there because you can't do performances like the ones in Baku if you have supposedly 'lost it'. We are struggling to have a high percentage of success, we don't know why it is like that and as I said, I had never had it personally before in my career. I suppose that is my priority in these last races" Russell declared in the preview of the Mexico Grand Prix.

The Briton knows what he is capable of when he finds the W17's operating window. In Baku, for example, he achieved pole by eight tenths and held off Max Verstappen to take the victory, however that memorable performance was followed by a retirement, a ninth place and an eighth in the next three races, a roller coaster of results that has left him puzzled and that has forced him to look for answers off track.

Russell has revealed that he has been working with a sports psychologist for seven years, a tool that has accompanied him in his best moments and that has now become essential to face this crisis of consistency: "We are not boxers in a ring fighting directly against someone else, we are fighting against ourselves almost like a golfer. On a qualifying lap, you are there alone and it is the work and the preparation you have done that makes the difference, I am not looking directly at my number one competitor saying: 'how am I going to beat this guy?'. Rather I look at myself in the mirror thinking: 'what do I need to do to not have these bad performances and what sensations did I have of myself and the car during the great performances to replicate it more often?'" he explained.

The relationship with Antonelli, far from being tense, remains on professional terms: "On a personal level, Kimi is obviously a great guy with a lot of energy, we have had no reason this year not to continue a good relationship. I think many of these rivalries begin due to incidents or actions on track, the truth is that he has been at a level superior to mine this year, so we have not really been in that situation too many times; when it comes to racing, we each stay in our own and work with our individual engineers to try to get the best" Russell stated.

The Briton faces the last races of the season with the objective of recovering the regularity that he has lacked, his talent is beyond doubt as he demonstrated in Baku, but the lack of consistency has prevented him from fighting for the title. The battle against himself is, perhaps, the most difficult he has fought and Russell knows it.

His future at Mercedes will depend, to a large extent, on his ability to win that internal war and become again the driver who dazzled in his first seasons with the German team.