Let’s not sugarcoat it: George Russell had an incredibly tough 2026 campaign. With a magnet-like attraction to bad luck, the Briton spent a massive chunk of the season watching his 20-year-old team-mate storm away with the world drivers' championship.

But if you think that means Kimi Antonelli is treating the other side of the garage like chopped liver, you don't understand how Formula 1 drivers operate.

Because while Russell's Sundays might have been cursed this year, his Saturdays are still absolute box office. There is a very good reason the F1 paddock spent years calling him Mr. Saturday. His ability to drag a car by its absolute scruff and extract a magical qualifying lap out of nowhere remains a deeply lethal weapon.

George Russell, Mercedes

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And it is a weapon the newly crowned world champion is actively trying to steal.

On the Nu Silver Arrows Radio Show, Antonelli was remarkably honest about his own deficits. Despite holding the ultimate prize, he heaped massive praise on Russell’s one-lap wizardry, admitting he is still digging through the veteran's data to figure out how it's done.

"He's an incredible driver, very quick, especially in qualifying," Antonelli noted. "I think one thing that I really admire of him is how quick he can be in qualifying, how he can get into the rhythm and how he can just find lap time and put an incredible lap together."

Solving the Q3 puzzle

The modern F1 weekend is won and lost on track position. The days of easily slicing through the field are gone; the grid tightened up incredibly over the back half of the 2026 season. Antonelli himself pointed out how five drivers were within two-tenths of a second in Mexico. If you mess up Q3, your Sunday is essentially ruined by dirty air.

While Antonelli has displayed phenomenal race craft and tyre management on Sundays, he openly admits that Russell’s ability to transition from practice sessions into a sudden, untouchable qualifying rhythm remains a puzzle he hasn't completely solved.

"That's the thing that I'm still trying to learn from him," Antonelli confessed. "How, as well from practice, you know, how he is able to always find the little bit of a step. I think this season I've been trying to understand how I could extract more performance in qualifying because George is very good at this."

George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Michael Potts / LAT images via Getty Images

Winning the title clearly hasn't blunted the young prodigy's appetite for perfection. The Italian is treating Russell’s Q3 traces as mandatory homework to prepare for 2027.

"It is a thing that I will try to learn even more from him to understand how he's able to extract more performance out of himself and the car during a qualifying session," he concluded.