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George Russell said he has lost interest in where he finishes in the championship this year. His Formula One title dream is in ruins having been outshone by Kimi Antonelli. The Italian's ninth victory of the season in Austin on Sunday all-but sealed his champion status, 123 points clear of Russell with 125 still available. Things are much tighter from there with Lewis Hamilton only one point behind Russell, Max Verstappen six adrift of the Brit and Charles Leclerc only three points further back.
Russell is at risk of losing second spot in the championship if his poor form continues, but the Brit insists he doesn't care. He said: "As long as we win the constructors' championship, that's the main thing. Obviously, I'd like to finish best of the rest but P2, P3, P5 is not champion, so it doesn't mean anything."
Mercedes are 133 points clear of Ferrari with five rounds remaining. That advantage would have been slightly larger had it not been for one of Russell's more difficult Sunday drives this year.
Team-mate Antonelli won by 13 seconds in what boss Toto Wolff described as the performance "of a champion who isn't the champion yet".
But Russell had a promising start ruined by a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage while defending from Oscar Piastri. And he spent much of the rest of the race staring at the rear wing of the McLaren after serving that punishment.
Russell said: "It was six good laps and 50 bad laps. The penalty was a bit ridiculous as well, but that’s the least of my worries after such a bad weekend.
"[Antonelli] obviously was exceptionally competitive and there are signs that the [car's performance] window is very small. I hope that's an explanation for my lack of pace today, but I need to believe in my team because it's difficult to understand when you're so far off."
The Brit's failure to live up to his pre-season billing as title favourite, and the sheer size of the performance gap to Antonelli at times, has raised questions over whether he truly has what it takes to become F1 champion.
Former Red Bull chief Helmut Marko raised eyebrows before the Austin race by saying he doesn't think Russell, 28, will get another chance. But fellow Austrian Wolff hit back: "I think he's wrong on George. George has all the ability, I think the car doesn't suit him.
"I think that, at the beginning of the season, it's difficult to cope with a situation where you're feeling like 'This is my year to come', and then you have this wunderkind on the other side that starts to really chip away. And I believe that in a new season, George, if we provide him a quick car, has absolutely what it needs to win a championship.
"George, for all of us in the team, is a champion and has won in every category. I think he merits to be put in the group of the very best ones. This year we see this variability in results.
"When we land the car in the way that suits him, he's absolutely fine. But when it drops out of the operational window, he struggles. He struggles more than maybe Kimi, and that is on us. We just have to work it out.
"George is not half a second slower, three tenths slower than Kimi. That's just absolutely not the case. So what is it that he doesn't like? What is it that we need to do in terms of modifying the car, setting it up in a different way for him to go fast? Because it's all there – intelligence, ability, determination."
Big moments. Packed grandstands. A championship battle that’s heating up.
When the Formula 1 season delivers like this, watching from home just isn’t the same as being there when the lights go out.
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