Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle believes George Russell must find an "overdrive" to hit back at losing this year's Formula 1 Drivers' Championship to Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli clinched the drivers' title with four rounds to spare on Sunday, becoming the youngest-ever F1 World Champion. Meanwhile, Russell endured another frustrating race, suffering a battery issue on the opening lap before later receiving a 10-second penalty for a collision with Red Bull's Isack Hadjar.
He eventually finished sixth. Russell started the season as the championship favourite after comfortably getting the better of Antonelli in 2025. However, he has managed just three wins compared with his team-mate's nine and has generally been outpaced, although he has arguably suffered more than his fair share of misfortune along the way.
"Russell will be broken, because he waited at Williams a long time as a Mercedes junior to get his chance. He got it just as they stopped winning," Brundle told Sky Sports News. "They suddenly turned up with these new 2026 cars, an early dominant car, it's not dominant right now, but it was certainly in the first phase of the season.
And then this kid turns up and just transforms from a bit of a liability in year one to a generational talent in year two. "George has had to observe that, and I think it's affected his own performance. He's been so unlucky but then Antonelli had his fair share of unreliability, dropping out of races too.
What will hit George hardest is that he couldn't match Antonelli for speed, for consistent speed. That's all that matters in this business, the stopwatch, it's a very antiquated system. Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player "Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year running through F1 cars, we live and die by the stopwatch.
George has not been as fast as Kimi, especially in the second half of stints in a run on set of tyres. That's what will get to George. "It might break George, but I think it'll make him, he'll find an overdrive, he has to.
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