The underlying reasons why Russell won't be alarmed yet by Antonelli's start to F1 2026 

Since winning Formula 1 2026's opening race for pole, George Russell has seen Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli steal his thunder.

Having watched Lando Norris take the crown in 2025 with McLaren, Russell has been biding his time for his own championship-winning opportunity with the Silver Arrows. The regulations reset in 2026 seems to have finally delivered that chance as Mercedes has started as the class of the field with a strong chassis and power unit combination.

Russell duly took pole in Australia's season opener and romped home to victory, beating Antonelli in a Mercedes 1-2 as the sign of things to come. But two months on the picture looks quite different, with Antonelli now a much stronger competitor in his sophomore campaign, the Italian teenager sweeping the next three races from pole, writing history in the process.

Antonelli's run of consecutive victories contrasted with Russell finishing second, fourth and fourth again in China, Japan and Miami, and that 'mini-slump' has been the sign for plenty of pundits to make sweeping statements over the Briton's championship chances. It's easy to overreact after the recent run of races, especially for people who are paid or otherwise encouraged to do so. However, as is par for the course in F1, the real picture is a little bit more nuanced.

Poor performance or poor luck?

The first of Russell's three straight defeats to Antonelli came after issues in Shanghai qualifying, when his car stopped on track in Q3. After a scramble to get a lap in, Russell ultimately qualified second, three tenths behind Antonelli with a compromised build-up that left him starting the lap without battery charge. Russell dropped back at the start behind the fast-starting Ferraris, and after battling his way past, finished second with Antonelli already out of reach.

In Japan a wrong set-up choice on the front wing had to be rowed back throughout qualifying, leaving Russell second on the grid again. However, while Russell looked faster in China on balance, Antonelli's two Q3 laps were both good enough for pole and it did look like the Italian was arguably the quicker of the two Mercedes drivers on merit, and conscious set-up changes that backfire can hardly be ascribed to ill fortune.

At Suzuka both Mercedes cars made a poor getaway again, a recurring issue thus far which Mercedes has vowed to tackle as its rivals start giving it more of a challenge, but Russell did crucially get past Antonelli and was second behind leader Oscar Piastri when the pair came in for the race's only pitstop. Moments later the safety car came out for Oliver Bearman's big crash in the Haas, handing Antonelli the opportunity to make a 'cheap' tyre swap and emerge ahead.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Russell's Miami weakness

Miami was different in that there was no doubt from the start of the weekend who was the quickest of the two Mercedes drivers. Other than SQ2, Russell was a step behind Antonelli in every single session across the sprint and grand prix, only dropping behind Russell in the sprint due to a track limits penalty. In both qualifying sessions the gap between the two was a sobering four tenths, as Russell felt he lost three tenths in grand prix qualifying because of an error at the final corner.

Russell's argument is that the Miami International Autodrome is simply a track he can't get on with because of its specific low-grip tarmac. "This is a track I've always struggled with. Kimi was pole last year, I was P5, today he's pole and I'm P5," Russell said after qualifying. "It's just very low grip here, you're sliding around a lot, tarmac's hot. Similar to Brazil, Kimi again was more competitive than me there, whereas I much prefer the high grip conditions, where the tyre and the car are more connected with the ground."

As seen below, Russell's record in Miami confirms that the South Florida venue hasn't exactly been a happy hunting ground for him, having never qualified higher than fifth and taking just one podium so far. Naturally a lot of that is down to Mercedes not being anywhere near as competitive in the previous rules era, but Antonelli has comfortably beaten him in every qualifying session they participated in, even in the Italian's more difficult rookie season.

George Russell's Miami Grand Prix results

Russell made no excuses for what he called "really, really poor" pace on his side in the race, which ended up leaving him 43 seconds adrift at the finish. It prompted him to treat the final 20 laps as a test run, moving his brake bias and differential setting much closer to what Antonelli had been using, which he said made a "bigger impact than I thought".

"It was a very tough race," said the six-time grand prix winner. "The pace was really, really poor on my side. I've got some ideas. To be honest, I used the last sort of 20 laps as a bit of a test for myself and tried to do quite drastic changes with my driving style and some of the differential and brake settings on my car, and it improved things. But I just can't wait for the next races where we're in slightly more normal conditions."

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Dom Gibbons / Formula 1 via Getty Images

Playing the long game

Russell could treat Antonelli's hattrick of pole-to-flag wins as a cause for concern, but he could also look at the bigger picture. With his mixture of bad luck and poor Miami-specific form, Russell is now trailing Antonelli by 20 points. A deficit that with 18 races still to go feels irrelevant, especially given the gap Norris had to overcome in his title comeback last year.

That appears to be how Russell sees it and coming into his eighth F1 season he's not going to let the tiniest blip knock him off balance. "Clearly, [Kimi] is in a really great place at the moment, and momentum is with him, but I've got enough experience myself in championships I've won on how momentum swings throughout a year and also looking at the championship last year.

"To be honest, I'm not even considering it. I just want to get back onto the top step of the podium. The first three races I had the performance to do that. This weekend I absolutely did not have the performance to do that, so I could be standing here now with three very different results from previous races and then this just being a bit of a one-off, but obviously things worked out differently in Japan and China. That's Formula 1 sometimes."

Team boss Toto Wolff also saw no reason for concern just yet: "I've always said that George wouldn't be a grand prix winner if he wasn't a killer. These things, he analyses them, looks at the data, comes to his conclusions, and the conclusion is that he's never been quite at ease with the track, never liked the smooth surface. And that's it. Tick the box. Tomorrow he's looking forward to Montreal. And it's 18 races to go, many points to score."

Canada does happen to be Russell's favoured terrain as the site of one of his two grand prix wins in 2025, defeating Max Verstappen from pole with Antonelli third. A year earlier he also claimed pole, setting an identical time to Verstappen in Q3, before taking third behind the Dutchman and Norris.

The race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve sounds like the perfect place for Russell's title campaign to get back on the right track. If Antonelli were to carry his early momentum into the European stretch of the year, then perhaps that conversation starts changing.

But for now, it's all to play for, and too early to overreact.