Comparing 2025 and 2026 shows just how dismal Russell’s season was

After winning in Azerbaijan, George Russell declared that he was back to his old form. Ultimately, it proved to be only a brief upturn in a season that has gone badly wrong for the British driver. One statistic is particularly hard to believe.

Anyone comparing Russell’s performances in 2025 and 2026 could be in for quite a surprise. A year ago, Mercedes were only the third force behind McLaren and Max Verstappen, who dominated virtually the entire season. The Silver Arrows were left picking up the scraps behind the three drivers’ title contenders. By contrast, Mercedes have had a dominant car for most of the current campaign.

Yet that contrast is not reflected in Russell’s results at all. Across the first eighteen grands prix of the 2026 season, the King’s Lynn-born driver has scored just five points more than he managed a year ago, despite having a dominant car at his disposal (242 points versus 237).

That statistic looks even worse when we consider that all the sprint weekends have already taken place, whereas three sprints still remained at this stage last year. To make the points totals truly comparable, we should deduct Russell’s points from the last three sprints: a total of 13 points from Silverstone, Zandvoort and Singapore. With that adjustment, Russell actually has fewer points than he did a year ago (230 versus 237).

Applying the same method to Antonelli’s tally shows that he has 352 points after eighteen grands prix and three sprints, compared with just 88 at this stage last year. That is an exact fourfold increase year on year.

Russell not too concerned about second place in the championship

Given Russell’s current form and his considerable bad luck, he faces a very difficult task even holding on to second place in the drivers’ championship. Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc are all breathing down his neck, with Leclerc just nine points behind him.

“For me, as long as we win the constructors’, that’s the main thing. For the team, obviously I’d like to finish best of the rest, but P2, P3, P5 is not champion, so it doesn’t mean anything,” Russell said dismissively.

He is not happy with his 2026 season, and second place will not change that. This was supposed to be his championship-winning year. “I guess in terms of my mentality this season, my view of the championship has been up and down. Early in the year, when I had a big points deficit, the thing that was keeping me up at night was my lack of performance and thinking, ‘How am I going to improve my performance? What do I need from the car? What does the car need from my driving?'”

“And then I came from 70 points down to within 25 points post Silverstone and then the gap extended, and then Baku happened. That felt pretty big in terms of my chances again. One week later, it sort of kicked down again and salt added to the wound with the grid penalty in Singapore. So, this season just wasn’t meant to be. I’m not bitter about it. I’m not,” he insisted.

“I’ll look back on the areas I could have done better and should have done better as opposed to things that have been out of my control that have gone against me.” Russell refuses to feel sorry for himself. “And I’d say as much has gone against me in terms of bad luck, there’s been as much of my performances that haven’t been to the standard that I know I’m capable of,”