Nico Rosberg believes that George Russell is currently fueled by an extraordinary surge of motivation, reminiscent of the drive that helped him overturn his own setbacks against Lewis Hamilton and capture the 2016 world title. Russell’s aspirations of clinching his first championship this season are rapidly fading, as his teammate Kimi Antonelli has built an 81‑point cushion at the summit of the standings.

Since his triumph at the Australian Grand Prix, which opened the 2024 season, Russell has only managed to finish ahead of Antonelli twice in the ten races they have both completed. The British driver has watched the young Italian claim his seventh and eighth victories of the year during the back‑to‑back events at Monza and Madrid, further widening the gap between them. After Sunday's race, where Russell settled for fifth place, Rosberg was questioned by Sky Sports F1 about his own experience of bouncing back after a painful defeat to Hamilton in 2015 and then seizing the championship the following year. Rosberg replied that the sting of losing repeatedly was a powerful catalyst.

"I was driven a lot by the pain," he said. "Subjectively, it was painful to keep losing against Lewis and that just drove an insane motivation." He went on to draw a parallel with Russell’s current predicament. "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 super hard because I know George doesn't give up and he's hating the situation of getting beaten over and over by Kimi. It's a bit of a difficult one because it's hard to understand where the pace has gone for him," Rosberg explained. Russell has been Mercedes’ leading points scorer in three of his previous four seasons with the team – twice when paired with Hamilton (2022 and 2024) and once alongside rookie Antonelli (2025).

To repeat that achievement this year, he will need a dramatic reversal of fortunes with nine races remaining on the calendar. Rosberg praised Russell’s meticulous approach, noting that the British driver strives for perfection in every aspect of his performance. "I'm very impressed with George's approach because he's a perfectionist and he tries to cover every aspect of his human performance. I know he's doing everything he can, and I admire that," the former champion said.

However, he also acknowledged the mental strain Russell is enduring. "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. 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‑scored by Antonelli at Monza – despite his teammate starting the race from a penalised 19th position and finishing 66 points off the pace – Russell admitted ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix that he would need a dose of luck to keep his title hopes alive. The deficit ballooned to a season‑high 81 points after a disappointing weekend in Madrid, where a problematic Q3 and an early Virtual Safety Car hampered his race, prompting him to effectively rule himself out of the drivers’ championship.

Looking ahead to the upcoming Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Russell told F1 that his focus remains on incremental progress. "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 said.

Mercedes remains confident that Russell can rediscover his form. Team principal Toto Wolff was asked what the British driver is battling most fiercely at the moment. Wolff replied, "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." Despite the current challenges, Wolff expressed certainty that even if this championship slips away, Russell will bounce back and remain a contender in future title fights. "When it comes to George, you can have good races, bad races, good years and bad years, but we're talking about a driver who has already won everything he could have potentially won before," Wolff noted, recalling Russell’s rapid rise through the junior ranks – from karting championships to Formula 3 and Formula 2 victories in his debut seasons, and his subsequent move to Williams. "I mean, we're talking about a top driver.

We need to find out what it takes for him 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," Wolff concluded. The F1 season continues with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix kicking off a triple‑header from September 24‑26, with the Baku race taking place on a Saturday.

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