George Russell is trying to find an explanation for his performance, after he came eighth in the American Grand Prix, in the Formula 1 World Championship, yesterday, Sunday, which was won by his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli, and he is close to winning the title.
The British driver started from sixth place at the Austin Circuit and received a five-second penalty due to an accident with McLaren driver Oscar Piastri. He said that he had no explanation for his poor pace other than that “it was not fast enough.”
He told Sky Sports: “I have to try to understand why. It's strange that your performance is much worse than expected, so I hope there is some explanation somewhere. But, in any case, I don't have an answer.
With this result, Antonelli is on the verge of winning the title, as it is within his reach, of course, in Mexico, early next week, while Russell remains his closest competitor, but he is currently trailing by 123 points, while the maximum remaining points that can be collected is 125 points.
Russell told reporters: “The pace was not good in the first stage... but when I came out of the pit lane using the hard tires, I probably did 6 laps in which I was going at the same speed as Kimi. "But then I caught up with Oscar and couldn't get past him."
He continued: “6 good laps, 50 bad laps. “I want to understand why the pace was so bad in the first stage.”
Team boss Toto Wolff said Russell had only encountered difficulties. The Austrian official explained: “George, for all of us on the team, is a champion and has won in every category, and I believe he deserves to be classified among the group of the best ever. We saw that last year.”
He added: “This year... we notice this discrepancy in the results. When we adjust the car in a way that suits him, he is very fast. But when the car falls outside this optimal performance range, it faces difficulties. "He faces more difficulties perhaps than Kimi."
He added: “We just have to work with him to solve this issue, and how there can be such a difference in leadership and performance. Because George is not half a second slower, not even three tenths slower than Kimi. “This is not true at all.”
Kimi Antonelli gave the head of his Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, 9 optimistic victories this season, but the dominant performance presented by the Italian driver in the “American Grand Prix” race in the “Formula 1 World Championship” after starting from first place, on Sunday, took the matter to another level.
The 20-year-old Italian driver, who is set to become the youngest champion in Formula 1 history, won in Mexico early next week, by a margin of more than 13 seconds, using a one-stop strategy.
As for his teammate and closest competitor for the title, George Russell, who is 123 points behind while there are 125 points remaining to be gained in the championship, he started from sixth place and finished the race eighth. Which makes his chances of competing for the title very slim.
“Regarding Antonelli, the most important thing I can say is that this is his best race so far,” Wolff said. He added: “He started from the starting line using lower quality tires, then dominated the race the entire time. A race presented by a champion who has not yet become a champion... has become exceptional.”
He continued: “I think he outperformed the car’s performance. “His driving style is in perfect harmony with the car.” When Wolf was reminded that Antonelli had already achieved some distinguished victories this season, including the Italian Grand Prix on his home soil from the end of the line as well as in Monaco and Spa, he admitted that he sometimes had difficulty remembering previous races.
He said, referring to the Monza circuit race: “Both of them were very good... but the most important thing is that this is the best and we can remember it.” Antonelli was happy to agree with his boss. He told reporters: “I think it was one of the best races; Because of the way we improved over the weekend.”
He added: “As you know; It was a great team effort today too, especially on strategy; We believed in stopping once. And yes; “It was a really great team effort, and they all deserve this result today.”
He added: “We definitely had the fastest car in (Monza). We were very fast, so; Of course, it was incredibly special to start from the bottom of the standings.” He continued: “But it was also a relatively easy track to overtake, and we were very fast. But of course, Monza was a very special race, and I will remember it forever. But, you know, this race was probably better in terms of execution... The way we built up the performance all weekend was very good.”
After a wonderful start to the season, Barcelona returned to reality strongly following its losses to its traditional rivals Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain last week, which raised doubts about the ability of the Spanish football champion to keep up with the strongest competitors.
German coach Hansi Flick's team dominated the local scene during the past two seasons, winning the league title twice in a row, but it failed noticeably on the European stage in major dates and high-pressure matches.
The Catalan giant played enjoyable attacking football this season, winning its first 11 matches in all competitions, but when the level of competition rose, the picture was completely different.
Barcelona lost to Paris Saint-Germain, the European champion for the last two years, 2-4, in the French capital on Tuesday in the third round of the prestigious continental competition, in a match that showed that it is still far from the level of the team coached by its compatriot Luis Enrique.
The suffering doubled after the painful defeat at home to Real Madrid 1-2 on Sunday in the local league, as the fragility of its defensive line was once again revealed.
A draw would have been considered an acceptable result and would have maintained a six-point lead over Real Madrid in the league, but it left vast spaces that Los Blancos exploited in the final minutes.
Three minutes before the end, French substitute midfielder Eduardo Camavinga ran towards the goal before passing the ball to his compatriot Kylian Mbappe, who scored his 100th goal for Real Madrid and his second in the match, giving his team the victory.
Flick told reporters: “In the end, in very big matches, the small details are important, and they are what decide the matches and determine their direction, and today they were not in our favor.” He added, pledging to improve: “We know what we must improve. We talk about this in every training session. "We will do that, and I'm not worried about that."
He continued: “Losing is part of football as well. But we suffered two defeats this week, and that is too many.” But this speech is not new, as the German coach previously repeated the same ideas during his time with the team.
After Barcelona's defeat by Italian Inter in the Champions League semi-finals in May 2025, Flick said: “We are a young team and we must mature.” He added at the time: “We are working on that, and we must improve defensively and in other aspects as well.”
Despite spending large sums of money this summer on signing Englishman Anthony Gordon, Rodri Hernandez and others, and trying to include Argentine Julián Alvarez, the international striker for Atletico Madrid, Barcelona did not sign a new centre-back.
Instead, Flick continued to rely on Gerard Martin, who moved from left-back to centre-back, alongside Pau Kuparsi. Martin performed relatively well given his technical limitations and change of position, but he seemed helpless against the best strikers in the world.
His poor dispersion of the ball led to Real Madrid's first goal when it hit the onrushing Mbappé and hit goalkeeper Joan Garcia.
In fairness to him, Martin later succeeded in stopping English international midfielder Jude Bellingham and Mbappe in a two-on-one attacking situation at the beginning of the second half, which revealed a broader structural problem that Barcelona suffers from.
The advanced defense adopted by the team becomes easy to penetrate when collective pressure is not implemented ideally and with the required energy.
Flick believed that Barcelona lacked physical “refreshment” against Real Madrid after a busy schedule of matches, even though his team had an extra day of rest compared to its competitor after the midweek matches, and the coach also waited until the last minutes to bring on both his compatriot Karim Adeyemi and the Brazilian Gabriel Jesus.
Barcelona is also suffering from problems due to injuries in the back line, as Eric Garcia, Frenchman Jules Kounde and Danish Andreas Christensen all missed El Clásico, in addition to midfielder Dani Olmo.
Flick said: “This is perhaps the most important point, the injuries we suffer from.” Despite this, Barcelona still maintains a three-point advantage over Real Madrid, who is in third place in the title race (27 vs. 24).
The team has the ability to achieve a new series of victories, but the coming weeks will constitute other important tests.
On November 3, Barcelona will host the English team Aston Villa, led by Spanish coach Unai Emery, in the Champions League, before visiting Atletico Madrid on the eighth of November. A month later, Manchester City will host England at Camp Nou.
Flick has been promising to develop in this type of match for more than two years, and perhaps now is the time to translate those promises into reality inside the green rectangle.
