George Russell is demanding an explanation from Mercedes for what happened this year

Mercedes driver George Russell, speaking at a press conference in Brazil, reflected on the various setbacks that have held him back this year. In Mexico, while his teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli was crowned world champion by finishing on the podium, the British driver was sidelined by problems with his car.

“It felt like the right Sunday to regain some confidence and momentum, but even there, everything went wrong. I qualified on the front row—practically in pole position—because I was so close to Lewis. Then, seeing the entire race practically taken away from me because of a software issue was incredibly hard to accept, especially after all these little setbacks we’ve had throughout the season.”

“This season wasn’t supposed to go like this; our performance hasn’t been good enough, and there’s been this incredible run of bad luck. Why does this happen so often? Because bad luck can happen once, twice, three, four times. But it’s happened too many times. We’re all discussing this internally, and as a team, we know we have to do better if we want to compete next season.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had so many setbacks in my career. To give you an idea, in past years we might have had two races with problems, or I think in 2023 we had four. This season we’ve had 14 races.”

In Mexico, Russell didn’t celebrate Antonelli’s victory with the rest of the team: the Englishman seemed very shaken by his performance and even skipped all media appearances. A clear favorite at the start of the year, Russell posted a message on social media to congratulate Antonelli.