{"id":724119,"date":"2026-06-09T00:45:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724119\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T00:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T00:45:11","slug":"george-russell-must-beat-kimi-antonelli-in-barcelona-to-save-f1-title-hopes-says-david-coulthard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724119\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell must beat Kimi Antonelli in Barcelona to save F1 title hopes, says David Coulthard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Formula 1 driver and broadcaster David Coulthard<\/a> argued George Russell<\/a> must defeat his Mercedes<\/a> team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the Spanish Grand Prix in order to keep his 2026 championship dreams alive.<\/p>\n

Antonelli made history on Sunday, becoming the youngest-ever winner of the Monaco Grand Prix. The 19-year-old survived a chaotic race start, a late safety car and the race restart to successfully convert pole position to his fifth consecutive win of the season.<\/p>\n

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In contrast, Russell, who had been second in the drivers’ championship before Monaco, suffered multiple penalties and finished outside of the points in 13th. As a result, the Briton is now third in the standings after being overtaken by Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Up To Speed<\/a> podcast, Coulthard argued: “He needs to show he can take a pole in Barcelona, and assuming the car is quick enough, of course, he just needs to be beating\u00a0Kimi.<\/p>\n

“Let\u2019s be honest. If he doesn\u2019t beat Kimi, it\u2019s over. No World Championship.”<\/p>\n

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Former F1 TV presenter and co-host of the Up To Speed podcast Will Buxton added: “You can say for as long as you want, ‘All I need is the car. All I need is the opportunity.’ Well, guess what? You\u2019ve got the car. You\u2019ve got the opportunity. And you\u2019re having your arse handed to you.”<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes\"Andrea<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

It is still early in the season, but as it stands after the first six rounds, Russell sits 68 points behind his team-mate.<\/p>\n

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While the British driver won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and the Chinese sprint race, he has not won a race since. He encountered technical issues during qualifying for the Chinese Grand\u00a0Prix, had his strategy hampered by a safety car at the Japanese Grand Prix and was forced to retire from the lead of the Canadian Grand Prix with car issues.<\/p>\n

So it has not been all down to a lack of performance from the 28-year-old, but as he struggles to put points on the board,\u00a0Antonelli is extending his lead as the youngest driver to lead a championship.<\/p>\n

To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Formula 1 driver and broadcaster David Coulthard argued George Russell must defeat his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":724120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[48546,49,48,3788,578,576,577,3024,14847,25251,35099,136945,82],"class_list":["post-724119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-australian-grand-prix","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-david-coulthard","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-japanese-grand-prix","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-monaco-grand-prix","tag-spanish-grand-prix","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}