George Russell has all but conceded defeat in the year’s title race, saying “it’s exceptionally unlikely” he will catch Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli at the top of the championship in the remaining races.
Russell is second in the drivers’ standings behind Antonelli, but has an 81-point deficit to his 20-year-old teammate, who took his eighth victory of the season at Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.
By contrast, Russell has just two victories this year after struggling to match Antonelli for performance while also struggling through a patch of bad luck earlier this season.
Nine races are still scheduled for the rest of the year -- a number that is dependent on the final two rounds in Qatar and Abu Dhabi going ahead -- but Russell is not convinced he can turn the tide.
“I’m not going to say it’s over, but it’s exceptionally unlikely that I’m in this fight,” Russell said on Sunday. “I’m not even thinking about being in the fight because I don’t think I am in the fight.
“It almost just allows me to focus race by race and just try and win as many as possible. What will be, will be, but ... Yeah, that’s where we are right now.”
Russell believes he has made progress with his own performance at recent races, but a disappointing qualifying result in Madrid followed by a two-stop strategy triggered by an early Virtual Safety Car left him fifth at the finish on Sunday.
“I think the performance was far better than the result today,” he said. “I think the pace was really strong among the strongest of everybody out there.
“So, I take those positives. But this was kind of like Monaco-esque in terms of in terms of qualifying being everything.”
