{"id":686954,"date":"2026-05-22T08:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/686954\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T08:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T08:40:09","slug":"russell-formula-2-title-win-shows-points-gap-to-antonelli-means-nothing-at-this-stage-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/686954\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell: Formula 2 title win shows points gap to Antonelli \u201cmeans nothing\u201d at this stage \u2013 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell<\/a> isn\u2019t concerned about his team mate\u2019s growing lead at the top of the drivers\u2019 championship standings because he\u2019s overturned larger points deficits in the past.<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> leads Russell by 20 points after the first four rounds of the season. However there are 482 points still available, 33 of which can be taken this weekend.<\/p>\n

Since winning the season-opening round in Australia over two months ago, Russell has seen Antonelli overhaul him by winning the last three grands prix. But although the Mercedes drivers appear to have the championship fight to themselves at this stage, Russell says he isn\u2019t growing concerned about Antonelli\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another race and it\u2019s not even in my mind, the championship,\u201d said Russell. \u201cI know what I\u2019m capable of, I know the speed I\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously Miami was a bad weekend. It was a tough weekend for me there last year and [then] I went to Montreal and had a great weekend. It doesn\u2019t mean this year is going to be the same, but I just need to focus on myself, go through my processes as I did in Melbourne, as I did in China, and control what I can control.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there\u2019s really no need to panic at all. And as we said, we\u2019re four races down, 18 at least to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell pointed out he beat reigning champion Lando Norris<\/a> to the Formula 2 title in 2018 by 68 points despite having fallen 37 points off the lead after the third race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually look back on my F2 season, which is obviously the last time I fought for a championship, and I was P6 after four races in F2 and about 35 points down,\u201d said Russell. \u201cSo at this point it means nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although the last grand prix in Miami was the third in a row where Antonelli beat Russell to victory, he considers that his only under-performance of the season so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very circuit-dependent, the same way as it was last year,\u201d said Russell. \u201cI think everybody has stronger circuits, weaker circuits. If I look at it objectively, Miami was the only blip, as it kind of was for me last year as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo hopefully it\u2019s one race out of 22 where it\u2019s like that. It has been a bit of a tricky start with a bit of bad luck in China and Japan, and the season could be in a totally different predicament if that was slightly different.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo as I said, there\u2019s no cause for concern. It\u2019s business as usual and see what this weekend brings. Also, going into the European season, when we\u2019re all in a bit more of a groove, some double-headers, triple-headers at the end of the year, things shift very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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2026 Canadian Grand Prix
\nBrowse all 2026 Canadian Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell isn\u2019t concerned about his team mate\u2019s growing lead at the top of the drivers\u2019 championship standings…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":686955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-686954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=686954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/686954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/686955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=686954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=686954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=686954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}