Sports|George Russell Works to Get His Groove Back in Formula 1

George Russell started 2026 as a favorite to win the Formula 1 drivers’ title, especially after he converted pole position into victory at the first Grand Prix of the year, in Australia.

He did that again in the last Grand Prix, in Austria, but the six races in between were rocky.

Mercedes has had the dominant car this year, and Russell’s teammate, Kimi Antonelli, won the five races after Australia, moving into first place in the drivers’ championship. Russell was undone by a virtual safety car period in Japan after another driver crashed, struggled in Miami and Monaco, and suffered a mechanical failure in Canada.

“It’s been a tough couple of months with some really tricky races, with races that felt like everything was going against me, then some races with some tough performances,” he said last Sunday in Austria.

Last year he finished fourth in the championship and, after Monaco in June, Russell fell to third in the championship, 68 points behind Antonelli.

“It hasn’t been to the level I would have hoped, but the good thing is we have a great racecar underneath us,” he said.

Russell said he accepted fault for some of the setbacks.

“Formula 1 is so challenging,” he said. “You’ve got to get the driving style in tune with the tires on a given day, based on the track temperature, work with the setup that you’ve curated with your engineers, everything has to click with energy management — it only takes one thing to be out to throw it all off. And for me, at the start of the season, everything was clicking. I then had some bad luck, a bit of frustration, and then for a couple of races nothing was clicking.”