‘Definitely Kimi’s in control’ of F1 title race, Russell admits

George Russell says Kimi Antonelli has full control of the Formula 1 championship battle and deserves his big lead, after his Mercedes teammate came through to win the Italian Grand Prix from 19th on the grid.

Antonelli took a power unit penalty at Monza and was tasked with helping Russell in qualifying before trying to limit the damage of his starting position in Sunday’s race. However, a strong first lap lifted Antonelli to 12th when the red flag came out for Charles Leclerc’s crash, and he soon made progress after the second restart to fight for the lead before an extra pit stop meant he needed to overtake Russell for the win with four laps to go.

Now 66 points adrift of his teammate, Russell says Antonelli’s performances are worthy of such a margin.

“Definitely Kimi’s in control of it and he’s deserving to be in control of it,” Russell said. “For me personally, I’m not even thinking about a fight or a comeback or anything. I’m just focused on taking it race by race and trying to maximize every single weekend.

“He’s performing incredibly well. It’s going to be exceptionally challenging to overcome that gap, so I’m just sort of accepting that it is what it is and I’m just going to enjoy it from here on in and try and win as many races as possible.”

Russell had restarted the race on hard tires and was fighting with Antonelli and Max Verstappen – both on mediums – for the lead when his two rivals made a pit stop under the virtual safety car. Although that allowed the pair to lose less time than under green flag conditions, Russell says an extra tire change of his own was never under consideration.

“I didn’t [think about stopping]. I actually thought the guys behind me were going to stay out as well. But I’m sure the team were quite nervous on the pit wall watching our battle and were probably quite happy to send us on different strategies. And, of course, when we have Max in the mix as well, from a team perspective you’re covering off both scenarios. So, today Kimi did a great job.”

Russell acknowledged what an entertaining recovery drive Antonelli produced on Sunday, but says his own performances are trending in a better direction than prior to the summer break.

“Obviously a great race all around from the neutral perspective," he said. "I think as soon as I saw Kimi up to, you know, P5 after just a handful of laps, I knew he was going to be in the fight with us. So, clearly that was a very impressive opening few laps and it was just very challenging to break the slipstream. I think whoever was leading would then be vulnerable to being overtaken again, so I think that’s what helped sort of drag a lot of cars along in those early laps.

“But I’m going to take the positives from the weekend because, for me personally, pre-summer break it was a real tough run of form. Come back since the break, with the Sprint and the two races, we’ve been in the top three in all of them. So, of course, I would have loved to have won today, but the performance is far better than I’ve had pre-shutdown.”