The reasons F1 title favourite George Russell is on the back foot - and why he must respond

Four races into the 2026 season and George Russell finds himself on the back foot in a Formula 1 title race he was the overwhelming favourite to win.

Russell entered F1’s new era as the obvious pick for the world championship. With rumours that Mercedes had returned to its former supremacy coming to fruition, this was meant to be the 28-year-old Briton’s year.

But the start of the season has been far from easy for Russell, who, for a combination of reasons he would not have seen coming, is staring at a 20-point deficit to his Mercedes team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

So where has it gone wrong for Russell?

Bad luck and misfortune

Russell made the perfect start at the Australian Grand Prix by converting pole position into a comfortable victory ahead of Antonelli to underline his pre-season favourite tag.

But things started to unravel at the second round in China. Having outpaced Antonelli in both practice and sprint qualifying, as well as winning the sprint race, Russell looked a solid bet for pole.

But a series of car problems struck Russell in qualifying. First, he suffered a front wing failure in Q2, before technical gremlins plagued his Mercedes in the final session. The issues left Russell with it all to do on his final lap of Q3 but he still secured second on the grid despite being compromised by cold tyres and sup-optimal battery charge.

Both Mercedes lost early ground due to poor starts and Russell dropped further down the order during a safety car period and difficult restart. By the time Russell had fought his way back into second, Antonelli had pulled enough of a buffer to secure a maiden win.

Russell was again beaten to pole by Antonelli next time out in Japan but was left rueing the timing of a safety car that cost him a potential victory. Until Ollie Bearman’s frightening crash triggered the safety car, the win looked to be between McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Russell.

Russell would make his pit stop one lap before the safety car was deployed, which meant he missed out on a cheap stop, which Antonelli directly benefitted from to move into the lead.

Crucial time was lost when Russell was overtaken by Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton at the restart when he accidentally hit the harvest limit early. Things would get worse for Russell when a software glitch in his Mercedes power unit enabled Charles Leclerc to overtake.

Russell briefly got past Leclerc at the chicane, but Leclerc immediately snatched the place back around the outside of Turn 1 with a move that sealed the final podium spot and left the Mercedes driver a frustrated fourth.

This result, coupled with a second win on the bounce for Antonelli, saw the teenage sensation move into the lead of the world championship for the first time.

Kimi Antonelli’s sparkling form

Some of Russell’s early struggles can be put down to misfortune and bad luck but Antonelli is also operating at an incredibly high level.

While most of the noise has surrounded his much more experienced team-mate, Antonelli has seized early control in the title race and established a surprise championship lead.

The Italian, who doesn’t turn 20 until August, has exceeded everyone’s expectations with a series of outstanding performances that have seen him become the first driver in F1 history to convert his first three poles into victories.

It looked like Antonelli was set for a rocky start after suffering a huge crash in final practice at the season opener in Australia. Such an incident would have destabilised Antonelli last year, but any fears of a potential spiral were put to rest as he bounced back to salvage second place behind Russell.

He may have rode his luck in China and Japan to a certain extent, but Antonelli also had an answer to everything Russell threw at him when it mattered.

Then in Miami, Antonelli produced his most impressive F1 weekend to date. Having held his nerve to make it three poles in a row, Antonelli resisted the McLaren of reigning champion Lando Norris in a race-long battle to clinch a third successive win.

Antonelli had a clear and genuine pace advantage over Russell all weekend and put his Mercedes team-mate, who could only finish fourth, firmly in the shade.

Some doubted whether Antonelli would even be on the grid this year after a rollercoaster rookie campaign, but he has stepped up and found another level in 2026. It has taken many, seemingly Russell included, by surprise.

An ‘outlier’ bogey track

Russell had reason to feel hard done by in China and Japan, but in Miami, he turned in a disappointing display by his own admission.

A 0.399 second gap between Antonelli on pole and Russell in fifth marked the biggest margin between the two Mercedes drivers over a single lap in 2026. In the race, Antonelli finished 43 seconds ahead of fourth-placed Russell.

To his credit, Russell didn’t make any excuses for his performance deficit to Antonelli and acknowledged he was not operating at his best. He put this down to the low-grip track surface and branded Miami as one of his three weakest “outlier” tracks of the season.

“I just struggle on these low grip circuits, to be honest,” Russell explained to Sky Sports F1. “Here, Zandvoort, Brazil. It’s something I do want to work on, but I would say there’s probably three tracks from the 24 that are outliers for me, and Miami is definitely top of that list.”

Despite being beaten by Antonelli for the third straight weekend, Russell insisted there is no reason for him to panic yet.

"It's just that I want to get back on to the top step of the podium. The first three races, I had the performance to do that, but this weekend I absolutely did not have the performance to do that,” he said.

"So, I could be standing here now with three very different results in previous races, with this one [Miami] being a bit of a one-off, but obviously things worked out differently in Japan and China, but that's Formula 1 sometimes."

A response is needed

Russell is right not to overreact to the position he finds himself in. After all, there are still 18 races remaining and an awful lot of points up for grabs between now and the season’s end on 6 December in Abu Dhabi.

Form will naturally fluctuate throughout such a long season, and the hugely inexperienced Antonelli will likely face his own hurdles along the way.

But there is no denying Russell finds himself in a difficult spot. He has had to wait eight years to find himself with the best car, and after convincingly being the stronger Mercedes driver last season, he would have expected things to have gone differently this year.

Russell is in need of a response and there may be no better opportunity than at the next race in Canada, where he dominated last year. Montreal is one of Russell’s strongest tracks and he needs to take full advantage if he is to change the current momentum of the title race.

"George is a killer. What makes him so good is he never stops fighting or attacking," Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

"I've seen him throughout his career in junior formulas and karting and here. He's going for this and won't leave a stone unturned. I have no doubt the two of them will fight for points throughout the season."