George Russell has suggested that there is “no need to panic” over his 20-point deficit to team mate Kimi Antonelli in the Drivers’ Championship, with the Briton feeling confident in his abilities ahead of a weekend where Mercedes will bring their first significant upgrade of the season.
A third consecutive victory for Antonelli last time out in Miami saw the Italian stretch his advantage further at the top, while Russell faced a tougher outing and finished Sunday’s race in fourth.
However, the 28-year-old is keen to return to action at this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, an event that he triumphed in last year.
Reflecting on the season so far, Russell commented during Thursday’s media day in Montreal: “We’re at the end of May, we’ve done four races and it’s felt very disjointed so far this year, so I’m just looking forward to going racing and more races back-to-back, getting into a bit of a groove.
“Miami was obviously a very tough weekend for me, but a huge amount learned from that and I feel great coming into this weekend.”
Pushed on what the key learnings were from the Miami weekend, Russell explained: “I think for a lot of us, we’re all so focused on the energy management that all of the issues from the past of dealing with the tyres, dealing with the set-up, just fundamentals of racing, have been put on the back burner.
“We missed some key things [in Miami] because we were focused elsewhere, and that was a good little reminder. As I said, as painful as it was, it was a very much needed weekend because I think it’s going to prove very beneficial for the rest of the year.”
While many of Mercedes’ rivals appeared to make progress in Miami after bringing upgrades, the Silver Arrows will have updates of their own this time out – leaving Russell to hope that they too can experience an improvement.
“I’m hoping it’s going to be as competitive as what we saw [from] the upgrades McLaren and Ferrari brought in Miami – they obviously took a decent step forward,” he continued.
“Our numbers look pretty promising, but we know it may not correlate that way in reality. There are no signs telling us it won’t be competitive but, as I said, until we drive it on track, there’s always going to be a few unknowns.”
Despite falling 20 points behind Antonelli in the standings following the opening four rounds of the campaign, Russell has insisted that this will not make a difference to how he approaches the weekend ahead.
“It’s just another race for me,” the six-time race winner said. “It’s just another race, and it’s not even on my mind, the championship. I know what I’m capable of. I know the speed I’ve got. Obviously, Miami was a bad weekend.
“It was a tough weekend for me there last year, and I went to Montreal and had a great weekend. It doesn’t 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.
“There’s really no need to panic at all. As we said, we’re four races down, 18 at least to go. I actually look back on my F2 season, which was obviously the last time I fought for a championship. I was P6 after four races in F2 and about 35 points down. At this point, it means nothing.”
And in terms of which of his qualities as a driver could give him an edge in the championship fight, Russell responded: “To be honest, I’m just looking at myself as my main competitor, and that’s what I have done over the last seven years in my whole Formula 1 career.
“I know that if I tick all of my boxes, I know I can beat anybody. That was the case last year when I was team mates with Kimi and the year before when I was team mates with Lewis [Hamilton].
“So I’m not looking at my edge over anybody else – I’m looking at how do I get the most out of myself, with my engineers, out of the car set-up, out of the tyres. I know if I tick all of those boxes, I can win, so that’s my goal.”
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