New F1 champ’s teammate Russell finds it ‘tough to deal’ with

George Russell is not a sore loser, so let’s get that out of the way first.

Mercedes’ British driver, who was left picking up the pieces while his 20-year-old teammate Kimi Antonelli was celebrating an historic Formula 1 world championship in Mexico City, left the track without saying a single word on Sunday.

He did go up to Antonelli to congratulate him and his family and Mercedes decided to cop the $5,000 fine after the 28-year-old decided to skip his post-race media duties.

Truth be told, Russell was left shattered by his inability to match his young teammate for sheer speed throughout the season.

After dominating early-season testing, Russell went into the campaign as universal favourite to take the title, the heir to Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes ready to assume his place in the pantheon.

That status was reinforced by an imposing victory in the opening race in Australia. Since then, however, that early optimism has turned to ashes as he watched the young pretender win five consecutive races and build a big lead in the standings.

Over the remainder of the season, Russell won in Austria and Azerbaijan while his teammate claimed another four grand prix victories, including the United States GP two weeks ago, which put the Italian on the brink of the championship before he officially sealed it on Sunday.

Russell needed to win in Mexico to have any hope of stalling his young teammate but a faltering sixth place, which included a 10-second penalty for bumping Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar, perfectly summed up his disappointing season.

Russell's sixth place in Mexico City also dropped him in the drivers' championship behind Antonelli, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, and Ferrari’s Hamilton.

While a season like this is enough to break even the best of drivers, Russell on Monday "spoke from the heart" to admit it was "tough to deal" with seeing his Formula One title bid disintegrate in such fashion.

"Now feels like a pretty suitable moment to speak from the heart," Russell wrote on Instagram late Monday.

"This season started off exactly how I had hoped but it very quickly unraveled with tough luck and poor performances.

"It's been the first proper season of my career where I've had more bad days than good.

"Has it been tough to deal with? Yes, very.

"Has it been tough to pick myself up week in, week out? Yes, very.

"Confusion at times? Often.

"All I know is that I've given it my all and 2026 was not meant to be my year."

Team boss Toto Wolff said Mercedes had let him down with an unresponsive car.

Russell, for his part, vowed to come back stronger in 2027. "I will be giving my absolute all to rediscover the performance I have been capable of producing for the majority of my career and fingers crossed a little bit of luck returns," he said.

Ahead of the Mexico City race, the Briton, who has eight career race wins to Antonelli’s nine just this season, had said: "I remind myself that I'm 28 and I see Lewis (Hamilton) still competing extremely well at 41 and Fernando (Alonso) at 45.

"And you know Lewis won the majority of his titles in his thirties so this year is absolutely not going to define my career as a whole.

"It's not going to break me. If anything, it's going to make me stronger."