George Russell's form hit a new low at the United States Grand Prix, despite glimmers of progress in the Formula 1 grands prix shortly before then. In Austin, the Mercedes driver qualified over four tenths behind team-mate Kimi Antonelli, slumping to an eighth-placed finish on Sunday while the 20-year-old took another step to the world title with a ninth win of 2026.
There were some mitigating circumstances behind Russell's P8, as a five-second penalty on lap one dropped him behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri. Permanently, as it would transpire. But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff pointed out afterwards that that "doesn't make any difference to the underlying problem that we need to solve”.
