‘Look at Lando!’ Mercedes boss Toto Wolff tells George Russell not to give up on title dream despite nightmare run of luck
Russell failed to score in Monaco for the second race in succession after he was forced to serve a drive-through penalty following a pit-stop mistake by his Mercedes team.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has told George Russell to use Lando Norris’ comeback world championship win as fuel that he can still land his maiden title.
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Russell failed to score for the second race in succession in Monaco after he was forced to serve a drive-through penalty following a pit-stop mistake by his Mercedes team.
The British driver is now 68 points behind team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the standings after the Italian teenager won for a fifth consecutive time.
Like Russell, Norris won the opening round of last season, but then fell away as he struggled for form before an engine failure at the 15th round of 24 in Zandvoort left him 34 points behind McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri.
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However, Norris clawed Piastri back in – and also held off a resurgent Max Verstappen who himself had been 104 points off the championship pace – to take the title at the final race.
And Wolff said: “I talked with George yesterday and today. This is a long championship. Last year I remember people saying Piastri has won the championship.
“It’s not necessarily only about one year, but it’s many years. Luck swings your direction, and then sometimes it doesn’t. And it’s not a question of not knowing how to drive.
“It’s about having a car underneath that you feel confident with and that you can go fast. Formula One is about physics and not mystics. You don’t unlearn how to drive, so I’m not stressed at all for these performances, because we know he’s one of the best.”
Russell has been beset by a run of bad luck – which he described after Sunday’s race in the principality as “beyond frustration” and an “incredibly difficult pill to swallow”.
However, the 19-year-old Antonelli, who has no match for Russell last year, has been quicker than his older team-mate in two of the last three events, in Miami, and again in Monaco.
However, Wolff continued: “George is really good at analysing and assessing the situation and I told him, and it is easy to forget, that Montreal was only two weeks ago, he was on pole, he won the sprint race, and he was leading the main grand prix and there was no discussion about a lack of speed.
“We have got to stay with both feet on the ground, work through the data, and see why this one was a difficult one for him, and so was Miami, but it is not a pattern I have seen throughout the season.
“I couldn’t wish for a better combination of two drivers, and I have no doubt George will come back very strong, and that makes us good as a team that we have two drivers who we can rely on for poles and wins, and to make us win the constructors’ championship.”
Russell will bid to bounce back at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, one of 16 scheduled races still to come.