SINGAPORE — Mercedes driver George Russell refused to blame bad luck for his massive 84-point deficit to teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, despite a devastating mechanical failure that robbed him of a guaranteed podium at the relocated Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. The 28-year-old British driver arrived for media day at the Marina Bay Street Circuit facing a steep championship gap and a massive engine penalty that will send him to the back of the grid for the Sprint weekend under the Singapore floodlights.
"I don't feel my performance has been good enough this year, independent of good luck and bad luck," Russell confessed. "And I feel that whenever I do have bad luck, of course, I can be disappointed about it, but I want to focus on the things I can control first." Russell said he would not point fingers at the Mercedes factory despite multiple reliability issues that were out of his control.
The statistical shift has been stark. Antonelli, the Italian rookie, leads the qualifying head-to-head 9-7 and has finished ahead of Russell in 11 races this season. Russell acknowledged the reversal from his historical standard, when he frequently outperformed seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton over a single lap. "And all of my years in Formula 1, I've always had a great record against my teammates and especially qualifying," he explained. "I think it was sort of like 80-20 in my qualifying records. And this year, I'm, I don't know, 40-60 or maybe even less. And so that really shows I haven't done a good enough job this season, independent of the good luck or the bad luck."
"So I guess that's why it maybe isn't affecting me as much as it would in different circumstances," Russell noted regarding his recent string of mechanical failures. "And, you know, every weekend I just wake up, look myself in the mirror and think what I can do better." With his championship hopes erased, Russell said his focus is fixing his own flaws rather than mourning lost points as Mercedes prepares for the high-stakes Sprint format, a weekend where Mercedes confirms Russell will take an older specification and a grid penalty.