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George Russell stated he won't engage in mind games with rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli, despite suggestions from F1 insiders. He emphasized winning fairly and cited Lewis Hamilton as a role model for clean competition.
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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.
âThatâs not how I go about my business,â 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 âin a fair and dignified way,â and made clear he sees mind games as something other champions have done, not something he plans to start doing now.
âI know what I stand for,â he said. âI donât need to win through any of those.â
Which is a perfectly reasonable answer, except for the small matter of the standings.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli is 19 years old, in his rookie season, and currently leads the Formula 1 Driversâ Championship. That sentence still looks strange written down.
The Italian was promoted into the Mercedes seat vacated by Hamiltonâs 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.
George Russell believes in winning fairly and does not want to engage in psychological tactics, as he sees them as contrary to his principles.
David Coulthard suggested that a driver should lean on a rookie teammate and use psychological tactics, especially if the rookie is leading the World Championship.
George Russell cites Lewis Hamilton as a role model for winning in a fair and dignified manner.
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Thatâs the context Coulthard was speaking to.
Experience is one of the few things Russell has that Antonelli doesnât, and the conventional wisdom in F1 is that you use every advantage available, including the psychological ones. Plenty of past champions built careers on it. The paddock has always had a soft spot for the driver willing to make a teammateâs life uncomfortable on the pitwall, in the media pen, and on track at Turn 1.
The Briton is refusing to play that game, which is both admirable and, depending on how the next few races go, possibly a little expensive. Thereâs a version of this season where the high road costs him a title. Thereâs also a version where Antonelli, still a teenager, makes the kind of mistake that 19-year-olds make when the pressure becomes real, and Russell is able to capitalize on it.
But Russell would rather lose his way than win someone elseâs. But Coulthardâs advice exists because, historically, most drivers in Russellâs position eventually take it.