‘I’m focused on myself’ – Russell on title fight with Antonelli, ironing out errors, and his Mercedes contract

George Russell has shared an insight into how he is approaching the resumption of the season in May, with the Mercedes driver hoping that the championship battle continues to be between himself and team mate Kimi Antonelli whilst remaining wary of the competition.

Russell currently sits in P2 of the Drivers’ standings behind Antonelli following the first three rounds of the campaign, having won the opening race in Australia before Antonelli scored back-to-back victories in China and Japan.

With the end of the April break nearing – ahead of Round 4 in Miami on the weekend of May 1-3 – Russell spoke to a select group of media, including F1.com, about how he is remaining focused on himself, the areas that he hopes to improve on, and the situation with his Mercedes contract.

Feeling ‘great’ and hoping for title fight just with Antonelli

Reflecting on how he is feeling physically and mentally at this stage of the season, Russell explained: “I felt great prior to any break and I feel great now, to be honest.

“Definitely, for everybody, you do feel fatigued coming away from those first three races, but you're always competing against competitors who are on the same schedule as you. You're all equally fatigued, and now we're all equally recharged.

“I would have loved to have continued racing, and I know that wasn't possible in the Middle East, and it wasn't practical to go anywhere else. But I've just used this time to good use, spent a lot of time with the team. I'm going to have numerous days on the simulator prior to Miami, to try and iron out some of these unexpected issues that have caught us out.

“But, of course, the main thing is the performance and the performance looks very strong, so I'm hoping to continue where we left off.”

In terms of being in a potential title fight with Antonelli, Russell is hopeful that the pair can continue to share a two-way battle – but is also mindful of how the competition might catch up.

“Firstly, 100% [Mercedes will] give the same opportunity to the two of us,” he explained. “That's always been the case for Mercedes ever since the Lewis [Hamilton] and [Nico] Rosberg days.

“Of course, I hope it's just the two of us going for the championship, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves because – I've said this numerous times – in 2022, after three races, I think [Charles] Leclerc had a 30-plus point lead, and [Max] Verstappen was saying the championship is over and Ferrari were the quickest, and then at the end they were not.

“I think we have a very good direction. I think the correlation is very good. We're ticking all of the boxes that tell us we have a really great foundation with the car but, of course, these things change.

“We know McLaren have not brought a major update recently, and when you look at their performance in Suzuka, I think [Oscar] Piastri could have won that race without any Safety Car at all. I'm just taking it race by race. The championship is not even in my mind. I just go to every race, try and maximise the performance, and we'll count the points at the end of the season.”

Focusing on the goal and ironing out errors

The next event for Russell to focus on will be the Miami Grand Prix, a weekend that proved successful for Antonelli back in 2025 as the youngster claimed a maiden Sprint Qualifying pole. However, Russell says that his team mate’s prior success at the track does not ramp up the pressure.

“Not at all because, that was his strongest track last year, but I had 20-plus other tracks that were very strong for me,” said Russell. “A championship is won over the whole season, and as long as I maximise my points by the end of the season, what happens race by race, no one remembers.

“That is my goal. That is what I'm confident in achieving over the course of the championship. Consistency, good results on the bad days, victory on the good days, and that is going to continue to be my goal every single weekend.

“So, as I said, I'm not thinking about Kimi, I'm not thinking about the championship. I'm focused on myself.”

Part of this process will involve addressing areas where he feels he could do better.

“I have things that I also need to improve around the race start, because that's clearly a very important factor,” Russell continued. “I have things I need to improve around the Safety Car restart.

“I made some procedural errors that led to me being overtaken by Lewis in Japan and then the problem later in the race with Leclerc. So, if I iron out these things, we're in a very different situation.”

What his Mercedes contract situation is

It was confirmed in October last year that Mercedes would stick with the line-up of Russell and Antonelli for 2026, marking the former’s fifth season racing for the team after making the step up from Williams in 2022.

When asked about hitting the performance levels required to continue with the squad beyond this year, Russell responded: “I will be here next year with the team and that's that. There's not really much more to say.

“It's a multi-year deal. It's numerous years, as we said last year, and often in a lot of these contracts, even if metrics aren't hit, if things are happy then you continue, but as I said, metrics will very likely be hit.”