Squaring off at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, Formula One’s leading title protagonists Kimi Antonelli and George Russell are embroiled in an increasingly tense head to head.
The teenage Antonelli appeared to have an iron grip on the lead having secured five straight victories, the last at Monaco after which he enjoyed a 68-point lead over Russell. Over the last three rounds however, with Antonelli enduring some bad luck and Russell taking a strong win in Austria, that gap has reduced to 25 points. A seemingly insurmountable chasm has suddenly become all too bridgeable and with it the title race is on again.
Russell still has ground to make up and the pre-season favourite has been honest in admitting how he has struggled to adapt to this season’s new cars. How well he does so, at Spa and in the future, will be key to his title tilt. In Belgium he painted a picture of the task.
“It’s like if somebody asked you to draw the Mona Lisa and you’ve got the Mona Lisa next to you, do you think you could achieve it straight away?” he said. “Maybe with practice, you will.
“With these new power units, with these new tyres, with these new cars, I’m having to set the car up in a way that has not been suited to my driving. I’m having to drive in a way that I haven’t driven in my whole career and I’m having to adapt to this.”
There has been no enigmatic smile from Russell, rather he has been forthright all season, not hiding from the issues he is having but equally refusing to be cowed. Even when Antonelli had built that immense lead the British driver stoically kept his head down and insisted that there was still a long way to go. It is unlikely even he expected it to quite turn on a dime in three races however.
Antonelli suffered a battery failure in Barcelona while in second place and at Silverstone was closing down the race leader Charles Leclerc until a wheel-shield failure on his front left made the car almost impossible to handle – he finished 15th.
Russell took second in Spain and at Silverstone yet he was under no illusions that a corner had been turned. “I’m not going to fight for a championship if the performances continue like that,” he pointedly observed after the British GP.
Antonelli has found a more natural symmetry with the car, perhaps a factor of his age and short time in the sport, while Russell, in his eighth F1 season, is suddenly having to second guess his own instincts, an immense task in any sporting discipline.
“I know exactly what I need to do,” he said. “But going out and then achieving it when I’ve driven for 20 years in a certain way and even more so, it’s been working for 20 years … Now suddenly it’s working 50% of the time but 50% of the other time it’s not working. Trying to recognise, is it going to work this weekend my normal way? Or do I need to adapt my approach?
“When I’ve performed at my very best I’ve just been performing subconsciously, not even been thinking about driving and now you’re having to think, trying to make these new techniques become subconscious techniques. That is the challenge.”
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The pair have been close in qualifying, Antonelli edging it thus far by seven to six (including sprint meetings) but Russell’s struggles have been evident in race pace when the Italian has repeatedly been demonstrably quicker and more comfortable with his ride. Moreover he has exploited it with great skill and impressive control, making his teammate’s task all the more challenging.
Russell has also endured poor luck, not least in an electrical failure in Montreal and then the unwarranted pit lane speeding penalty in Monaco which kept him out of the points. They now stand pretty much even in terms of the rub of the green. Antonelli’s lead is deserved but he too must adapt.
In only his second season in F1 the 19-year-old is coming to terms with what it means to be in a title fight, how small the margins are and how quickly the tide can turn. He remains impetuous and feisty, “a charger” as the team principal, Toto Wolff, admiringly observes, qualities that are endearing but which Antonelli recognises might need to be tempered.
On the Monday after the British GP he was joined by Roger Federer in the royal box at Wimbledon and enjoyed taking on board advice from a seasoned campaigner.
“We chatted about my races, we chatted about when he used to play and also about his life in general,” said Antonelli. “About pressure, he just told me to really focus one race at a time, focus on what you can control and also to control the emotions, especially the ones that can make you do mistakes.”
Both drivers, then, have food for thought at Spa-Francorchamps, where in first practice Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was quickest, edging out the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Leclerc, with Antonelli in sixth and Russell in eighth.
