Mercedes veteran George Russell explains: This is how he plans to turn things around

For George Russell, the first half of the season did not go as hoped. The Briton, who was tipped by bookmakers and Grand Prix experts as the clear favourite for the title before the start of the World Championship, had a run of bad luck; both technical issues and the course of the races thwarted his plans on more than one occasion. However, at times he simply lacked the pace to keep up with his strong team-mate, Kimi Antonelli.

The young Italian managed to take the lead in the World Championship and extend his advantage. And to make matters worse, Russell’s former team-mate Lewis Hamilton, now driving for Ferrari, also made significant gains. As a result, the veteran driver in the Mercedes works team found himself 59 points behind his rival from within his own ranks heading into the summer break. He currently sits third in the World Championship standings behind Antonelli and Hamilton.

The big question is whether he can turn things round. Russell himself says: “Every weekend will be important now. You want to build on your momentum, and now there are several race weekends coming up in quick succession over the next few weeks. We’ve only just reached the halfway point. And we need to keep working hard.”

A simple recipe for success

“We had a good run around the middle of the first half of the season, then the last three races were rather difficult again for various reasons. But I’m now looking forward to getting back on track and finding a good rhythm,” adds the 28-year-old. He insists he doesn’t know whether he’ll need to adjust his approach in the cockpit to achieve this.

“We’ll see. I don’t want to overthink it. I just want to trust my abilities and my instincts – I probably didn’t do that before the summer break. And I think I’ll just approach it with an open mind and see how far that takes me,” explains Russell. He isn’t thinking about the World Championship title at the moment. “I’m just taking it one race at a time. I’m aware that I need to improve my performance if I want to stay in the fight for the World Championship title. So that’s the top priority. Basically, it’s simple: if my performance improves, the points gap will narrow.”

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