![\"Mercedes](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/XPB_1450412_HiRes.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGeorge Russell hugs Kimi Antonelli’s mother in parc ferme after the Mexico City Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGeorge Russell hugs Kimi Antonelli’s mother in parc ferme after the Mexico City Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n
Russell failed to attend the media pen to speak with broadcasters and journalists following the race, a requirement of every driver in the field.<\/p>\n
The Brit was found to be in breach of Article B10.1.4e of the F1 sporting regulations, after which he was summoned to the stewards where Mercedes were fined 5000 euros ($7995 AUD).<\/p>\n
Mercedes explained that Russell was \u2018distraught\u2019 following a tough race, which featured an energy deployment problem, contact with Isack Hadjar<\/a> and a 10-second penalty, all culminating in a sixth place finish.<\/p>\n Antonelli, meanwhile, finished on the podium behind winner Max Verstappen<\/a> and Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, enough to seal his first world championship victory with up to four races remaining on the calendar pending a decision on the Middle East events.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw George after the race on the FIA scales and obviously he\u2019s distraught about the situation,\u201d Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff explained, noting Russell congratulated Kimi in person.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great show of sportsmanship to go and see Kimi. I have known George for such a long time. He is going through a hard time, but he was also responsible in getting the young man into this team.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a racing driver, this is a catastrophic moment and maybe today the race was a little bit a picture of his season.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a race for him to win. We had the pace in the car. And we let him down on the first straight. The energy delivery was not what we thought it should be.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m very much with him at the moment. I\u2019ve been in situations where it\u2019s very, very difficult to cope.<\/p>\n \u201cSo him not doing the media work or leaving the track is absolutely understandable. Him staying would have actually surprised me.\u201d<\/p>\n George Russell was absent from mandatory post-race media duties after the Mexico City Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images<\/p>\n Russell broke his silence via social media on Tuesday morning (AEDT) with a statement congratulating his junior teammate and reflecting on a difficult season.<\/p>\n The Briton entered this season as a standout favourite for the title, but a series of mechanical failures and poor luck throughout the year derailed his chances as Antonelli continued to rack up victories.<\/p>\n \u201cNow feels like a pretty suitable moment to speak from the heart,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n \u201cThis season started off exactly how I had hoped but it very quickly unravelled with tough luck and poor performances. It\u2019s been the first proper season of my career where I\u2019ve had more bad days than good.<\/p>\n \u201cHas it been tough to deal with? Yes, very. Has it been tough to pick myself up week in, week out? Yes, very. Confusion at times? Often. All I know is that I\u2019ve given it my all and 2026 was not meant to be my year.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to sincerely congratulate Kimi on what has been an absolutely incredible season. You truly deserve the championship.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you to the team for producing the best car and power unit this season; it\u2019s been inspiring to see everyone coming together over four tough years to bring Mercedes back to the top.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, all I can promise is that for the rest of this season, and into the next one, I will be giving my absolute all to rediscover the performance I have been capable of producing for the majority of my career and fingers crossed a little bit of luck returns.\u201d<\/p>\n Formula 1 returns this weekend for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Sao Paulo on November 7-9 (AEDT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell hugs Kimi Antonelli’s mother in parc ferme after the Mexico City Grand Prix. Image: XPB Images…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,3875,945,6490,85,4703],"class_list":["post-950417","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-george-russell","tag-mercedes","tag-slot3","tag-sports","tag-toto-wolff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950417","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=950417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/XPB_1449419_HiRes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n