George Russell Refuses to Play Mind Games With Kimi Antonelli Even If F1 Insiders Think He Should

George Russell sat down with CNN this week and was handed a fairly loaded question: David Coulthard reckons the way to handle a rookie teammate who happens to be leading the World Championship is to lean on him, work the psychological angle, get in his head a bit. Did Russell agree?

He did not.

“That’s not how I go about my business,” Russell told CNN, before drawing a line between drivers who win cleanly and those who win through what he called gamesmanship. He pointed to Lewis Hamilton as a role model, a driver who has won “in a fair and dignified way,” and made clear he sees mind games as something other champions have done, not something he plans to start doing now.

“I know what I stand for,” he said. “I don’t need to win through any of those.”

Which is a perfectly reasonable answer, except for the small matter of the standings.

Why This Question Is Even Being Asked

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is 19 years old, in his rookie season, and currently leads the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship. That sentence still looks strange written down.

The Italian was promoted into the Mercedes seat vacated by Hamilton’s move to Ferrari, and while he went through the usual rookie adjustment period of qualifying mistakes and Sunday damage limitation, he has spent this year on pole positions, podiums, and the top of the points table. Russell, the established team leader, the one who was supposed to inherit Mercedes when Hamilton left, is left chasing his own teammate.