{"id":903976,"date":"2026-09-24T17:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T17:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903976\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T17:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T17:30:09","slug":"russell-vows-to-keep-fighting-in-f1-title-race-despite-antonellis-advantage-formula-one-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/903976\/","title":{"rendered":"Russell vows to \u2018keep fighting\u2019 in F1 title race despite Antonelli\u2019s advantage | Formula One 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell has insisted he will keep fighting for the Formula One<\/a> world championship until it is mathematically gone but while he made an encouraging start to his efforts by going quickest in practice for this weekend\u2019s Azerbaijan Grand Prix the makeup of said numbers remains somewhat in limbo.<\/p>\n

Russell is 81 points behind his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli going into the race in Baku which is taking place on Saturday to avoid clashing with Azerbaijan\u2019s national remembrance day. The Italian has eight victories this season including the past two in a row, coming through to win from 19th<\/a> on the grid in Monza and then taking the flag in Madrid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite having a mountain to climb Russell has maintained the stoical and determined attitude he has demonstrated all season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to keep fighting at every single race until it\u2019s mathematically impossible,\u201d he said in Baku. \u201cI want to try and win every single race and put it on pole at every single race. That\u2019s my goal and that\u2019s what I\u2019m working towards every single weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s obviously a huge [points] deficit but it\u2019s not even really a consideration right now. I\u2019m in this position because the performance hasn\u2019t been strong enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

As things stand nine meetings remain with a potential 233 points still on the table. However with the races that close the season in Qatar and Abu Dhabi still under threat<\/a> of cancellation because of the war in the Middle East, that number may come down. If both races are cancelled it is understood they will be replaced by one round at Imola, reducing the total by 25 points.<\/p>\n

F1\u2019s current position is that the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi will go ahead with a final decision now expected in mid October, after the current triple header of races in Baku, Malaysia and Singapore.<\/p>\n

Mattia Binotto, the Audi team principal confirmed that this was the latest the sport could leave it for logistical reasons. \u201cAs we discussed during the F1 Commission last Monday, mid-October is the last call for such a decision,\u201d he said. \u201cThe main challenges are more organisation and logistics.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the decision the mathematics will at least be clear. If all nine remaining races take place Antonelli would still take the title if he is 100 points ahead in Mexico or 75 clear in Brazil.<\/p>\n

On track Russell opened well in Azerbaijan, quickest in first practice in a session where Antonelli lost half his run time with a hydraulic problem. In the afternoon Mercedes were once more on top, looking ominously quick on the street circuit which is energy-starved and plays to their car\u2019s strengths in energy harvesting and deployment. Russell was quickest again, a full half a second up on Antonelli with their nearest competitor, Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen, eight-tenths back in third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell has insisted he will keep fighting for the Formula One world championship until it is mathematically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-903976","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\/903976","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=903976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}