'I need to just get out of here': George Russell on his feelings after seeing partner Kimi Antonelli win title

SAO PAULO — Mercedes driver George Russell has confessed his feelings in the aftermath of watching partner Kimi Antonelli clinch his maiden F1 title, coupled with his "rubbish season" as he suffered a few technical issues with the car.

Antonelli became the youngest Formula 1 driver to clinch the championship after securing a third-place finish at the Mexico City Grand Prix, taking his points to 380, which are no longer possible for anyone to surpass with four races ahead.

Russell congratulated teammate Antonelli and his family on the title win but left the scene and did not even attend the post-race media duties after he came P6 and suffered deployment issues after starting the race from P2.

"I was extremely disappointed Sunday night, more from the fact of missing out on a great result from something again outside of my control, and that was just a really tough pill to swallow," Russell said in Sao Paulo as quoted by F1.

“This season it’s been ‘tough moment, pick yourself back up, tough moment, pick yourself back up’. And I think, as an individual, I’ve continued to have that resilience of being able to always pick myself back up, and it kind of just got to the point in me where I was like, ‘I need to just get out of here’, because it’s just been relentless what’s happened this year.

“It’s been tough. I’m here, four days later, ready to go again. And I think for any individual, or sportsperson, or businessperson, you never have every year of your life that goes the way you want.

“We all have problems we deal with. We have good days, bad days, good years, bad years. I think it’s important to not let that define you – you’ve just got to come back stronger, and that’s what we’re here to do.”

Russell opened up on the setbacks he has had to face this season, pointing out that technical issues have hampered him in 14 races this season, something which was never the case before. "I don’t think I’ve ever had this many setbacks in my career. I went through – after the race with my engineer – the season race by race, and we realised we had six races this season with no issues, and 14 races where we’ve had an issue of some sort.

"To give perspective, in the years gone by, we would maybe have two races where there were issues, or I think in 2023 we had four races where we had issues. This season we’ve had 14 races.