Nico Rosberg is convinced that George Russell is currently fueled by a fierce, almost desperate drive to overturn his recent misfortunes, much like the determination that helped him finally beat Lewis Hamilton after a series of defeats. The British driver, who entered the season as a favorite for the championship, now finds his title hopes dwindling as his teammate Kimi Antonelli has surged ahead, holding an 81‑point advantage at the summit of the standings. Since clinching victory at the season‑opening Australian Grand Prix in March, Russell has only managed to finish ahead of Antonelli twice in the ten races where both have completed the distance. Antonelli, the young Italian sensation, has already claimed his seventh and eighth wins of the year during the back‑to‑back events at Monza and Madrid, leaving Russell trailing further behind.
After Sunday's race, where Russell crossed the line in fifth place, Rosberg was questioned by Sky Sports F1 about the mental and emotional journey he experienced when he finally secured his 2016 world title after being soundly beaten by his Mercedes teammate Hamilton the previous year. Rosberg replied that the pain of repeated loss had become a powerful motivator. "I was driven a lot by the pain," he recalled.
"Subjectively, it was painful to keep losing against Lewis and that just drove an insane motivation. George will be in a similar situation. He will be so damn motivated at the moment to try and find improvements. He'll be working so hard because I know George doesn't give up and he's hating the situation of getting beaten over and over by Kimi.
He'll be working super hard but it's a bit of a difficult one because it's hard to understand where the pace has gone for him." Russell has been Mercedes' highest‑scoring driver in three of his last four seasons, topping the team’s points tally in 2022 and 2024 when he out‑scored Hamilton, and again in 2025 alongside rookie Antonelli. Yet with nine races remaining, he faces a steep climb to regain that status. Rosberg believes Russell's meticulous nature will keep him grinding for a breakthrough with the W17, even as the 28‑year‑old begins to question his own performance. "I'm very impressed with George's approach because he's really a perfectionist and he tries to cover every aspect of his human performance," the former champion said.
"I know he's doing everything he can, and I admire that. But, all the more, it's tough for him because he doesn't understand himself. He's always been fast; he's always been at least level with his teammate and suddenly it's gone away from him there.
It's really painful because you start to doubt yourself. It doesn't matter how confident you are, it then comes to questioning 'am I not good enough?
Was I better in the past and I'm just doing something wrong now?' It's really difficult." Fresh from being out‑paced by Antonelli at Monza—despite his teammate starting from a penalised 19th spot on the grid and finishing 66 points shy of the leader—Russell admitted ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix that he would need a measure of luck to keep his championship aspirations alive. The deficit ballooned to a season‑high 81 points after a disappointing weekend in Madrid, where a problematic Q3 qualifying session and an early Virtual Safety Car hampered his race.
That performance left Russell effectively out of the title hunt. Looking ahead to the upcoming races, beginning with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on September 24‑26, Russell told F1 that his focus would be on incremental progress rather than the overall championship picture. "Just keep pushing along. It has been a more positive couple of races even though the result was far from great today.
But it's kind of the story of the season. I just need to focus on the performance, keep trying to help the team. We're obviously in a great place to win the constructors', realistically I'm not in the fight for the drivers', and that just allows me to focus on race‑by‑race and trying to get some good results," he explained.
Mercedes remain confident that Russell can rediscover the form that made him a title contender. Team principal Toto Wolff admitted that pinpointing the exact cause of Russell's recent slowdown is challenging. "I don't know, because you can see the pace he had towards the end when he was catching Leclerc.
He was fastest out on track. But after the tyre changes, the pace wasn't there. I just don't know where it is and we have to analyse it, because clearly it's in him, it's in the car, and we just have to unlock it," Wolff said.
Despite the current setback, Wolff is certain that even if this championship slips away, Russell will bounce back and remain a significant factor in future title battles. "When it comes to George, you can have good races, bad races, good years and bad years, but we're talking about the driver that has won everything that he could have potentially won before," Wolff noted, recalling Russell's meteoric rise through the junior ranks.
"Every single karting championship, Formula 3 in his rookie year, Formula 2 in his rookie year, went into Williams. I mean, we're talking about a top driver. We need to find out what is it for him to be able to unleash that potential.
And of course, there's the psychological side. If you have a run like him this year, you're taking a beating. But the great ones, they recover. And George has all he needs to fight for championships.
Even if that one has maybe sailed, there will be more." The F1 calendar now moves to a triple‑header weekend, with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix kicking off on a Saturday, followed by two additional races through September 26. Fans can follow the action live on Sky Sports F1, streaming via NOW without a contract and with the option to cancel at any time.
The coming weeks will test Russell's resilience, his team's ability to extract performance from the W17, and his capacity to turn the pain of recent defeats into the fuel for a future resurgence.