Is George Russell’s gap in the World Championship reasonable? Here’s what Kimi Antonelli says

During the first few race weekends of the season, it seemed as though bad luck was dogging George Russell. The Briton, who had been tipped by bookmakers as the clear favourite for the World Championship title before the start of the season, was not only plagued by technical issues but also disadvantaged by safety car timing and questionable penalties. The racing gods had apparently sided with his young team-mate, Kimi Antonelli.

But recently, it was the 19-year-old Mercedes driver who ran out of luck. In the last three race weekends, he came away empty-handed on two occasions when he was in a promising position. The Italian’s championship lead over his team-mate has shrunk to 25 points. Speaking at Silverstone, Russell said that, given the bad luck that had dogged him at the start of the season, this was a fair margin.

Antonelli was asked about this in the paddock at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and said: “That’s really hard to say. He certainly had some bad luck, for example in Monaco. We don’t know how the race would have turned out, because we were so close to each other. It’s impossible to say now. He was leading the race and had to pit to serve a penalty. Then there were a few other occasions where he had a bit of bad luck.”

But he hasn’t always been lucky either, Antonelli explained, referring to the technical issues in Barcelona and the problem that set him back at the recent race at Silverstone, just as he was on the verge of storming to the front: “In my case, we were on course for a strong result on both occasions. In Barcelona, it was second place. As for Silverstone, we can’t know for sure, as I didn’t stand a chance, but I think we could have been in the running for the win. So we know for certain that would have been points.”

And the curly-haired driver continued: “I have to say, we were both unlucky. For one of us, it sometimes happened at more critical moments, but as I said, that’s just the way it is. That’s how motorsport works, and we all know it. We saw for ourselves how quickly that can change. As a team, reliability was definitely not our greatest strength, and we’ve realised that we need to keep working on it.”

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“Ferrari, for example, seems to be very strong in this respect, so we simply have to make sure this doesn’t happen again. I know the team is working extremely hard to ensure that. And we’ve both dropped a lot of points. And that’s certainly tough when it comes to the Constructors’ Championship. As drivers, all we can do is try our best and make the most of every opportunity that comes our way,” added Antonelli.