Racing
© Jonathan Borba
George Russell left Miami 20 points behind Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli after a weekend that laid bare one of the clearest weaknesses in his game: low-grip tracks where Antonelli looked comfortable from the start and turned that edge into another win.
The contrast was sharp all weekend. Antonelli took pole for the grand prix, qualifying 0.399s faster than Russell, and Russell admitted the gap was not just about one mistake on his final lap. He said he was “about three tenths up” before an error in the last corner, but made clear Miami’s conditions were the bigger problem.
“This is a track I’ve always struggled with,” Russell said. He described Miami as “very low grip,” with hot asphalt and a car that slides too much for his natural style. Speaking to Sky Sports F1, he said there are “probably three tracks from the 24 that are outliers for me, with Miami definitely top of that list,” and added: “I just want to get through this weekend really.”
Russell linked the problem to the way he drives. He said he is “quite a smooth, precise driver,” while Miami demands that a driver accept the car “just sliding” through the lap. He compared it to driving on extremely old tyres, with constant understeer and oversteer, and said he is far more comfortable at high-grip circuits “where the tyre and the car is more connected with the ground.”
That weakness mattered more because Antonelli has been beating him consistently in qualifying. Miami made it four races in a row that Russell has lost the head-to-head against his team-mate, and this time the 19-year-old converted his pace into victory and a 20-point championship advantage.
Russell did find one useful clue on Sunday. Assessing his race afterward, he called it “just a difficult race” but said Mercedes made “big changes to the differential and the brake balance” in the last 10 laps. Those changes moved his car “much closer to the set-up Kimi had run all weekend,” and Russell said “it made a big difference,” even if he still summed up Miami as “not a good weekend.” He still salvaged fourth place.
That detail only sharpened the question of why the change came so late. In Sky Deutschland’s analysis, former F1 driver Timo Glock said Mercedes should have tried Antonelli’s differential direction much earlier if Russell had been trailing all weekend. Glock argued that if a driver is, on average, four tenths too slow, “you have to act earlier on George Russell’s side,” rather than waiting until the final phase of the race.
Toto Wolff, Mercedes team principal, backed Russell’s view that Miami simply played against his strengths. Speaking to Sky Deutschland, Wolff said Russell had been “on the wrong foot here because the asphalt is so smooth and it was never a good race for him.” He said he expects Mercedes to “look very different next time,” but also acknowledged Antonelli’s progress, saying the Italian is now “really getting into the driving” and “making fewer mistakes.”
Wolff did not suggest the internal fight is slipping away from Russell. In Sky UK’s coverage, he called Russell “a killer” who “never gives up and always attacks,” adding that he has no doubt the pair will keep fighting for points through the rest of the season.
Russell has tried to keep the bigger picture in view since the start of the year, insisting before Miami that a championship is a marathon rather than something decided in race four. Miami did not change that publicly, but it did change the shape of the Mercedes battle. Antonelli’s improvement is no longer just a promising trend. It has become a points cushion, and Russell now needs tracks that suit him better if he is to stop his team-mate from turning that momentum into a real title break.