(Motorsport-Total.com) – After three consecutive Grand Prix wins, Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli leads the Formula 1 World Championship with a 20-point lead over his Mercedes teammate George Russell. Ahead of the upcoming race in Canada, the Brit is now under pressure.
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Expert Jolyon Palmer has observed that Russell’s performance this year has “gotten worse with every weekend.” “In Melbourne he was outstanding, in China he was unlucky, in Japan he struggled, and in Miami he was nowhere,” Palmer said in his column for F1.com.
Indeed, Russell won the season opener in Australia, finished second in China, and then missed the podium in both Japan and Miami. Meanwhile, the exact opposite is true for Antonelli, Palmer said. The teenager is getting better and better.
“I’ve never seen Kimi as good as [he was in Miami],” said the former Formula 1 driver, explaining: “His wins in China and Japan were convincing but not particularly spectacular. In China, he had by far the fastest car, and his teammate ran into trouble.”
“In Japan, he was undoubtedly the fastest but received additional support from the safety car during the race,” he recalled. In Miami, however, he “had his teammate under control more clearly than ever before,” Palmer praised.
“George struggled to get within a few tenths of a second of him,” said the expert, emphasizing: “Now his teammate has reached a new performance level, and he is gradually facing the same questions and concerns as his compatriot Lando Norris did twelve months ago.”
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Why Russell needs a “fresh start”
At McLaren in 2025, a similar picture emerged when Norris won the season opener in Australia but was overtaken and left behind in the championship by Oscar Piastri in the following months. Only after the summer break did the tide turn again, and Norris eventually became world champion.
“George needs a fresh start,” Palmer explains, “and next time he has the perfect opportunity for it.” Because while Miami, according to Russell himself, is a track that has never really suited him, the Brit is considered a “Canada specialist.”
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In 2024 and 2025, he was on pole position in Montreal each time, and last year he even won the Grand Prix. “It seems that Canada is already a decisive weekend in this 2026 season,” Palmer explains.
“Antonelli is in a form that hardly anyone could have predicted in February. If he wins again on a race track where Russell has shined in recent years, that would be an even clearer statement than his performance in Miami,” he emphasizes.
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The pressure for the upcoming race is therefore clearly on Russell.