MEXICO CITY: George Russell said on Thursday that his “great relationship” with team-mate and title rival Kimi Antonelli had not suffered this year despite being unable to match the Italian’s on-track performances.
Antonelli, 20, is poised to become Formula One’s youngest champion and the first Italian to win the title since 1953 if he finishes ninth or higher in Sunday’s Mexico City Grand Prix, leaving pre-season title favourite Russell, 28, battling for second place.
The pair have avoided the kind of on-track clashes that have often led to strained personal relationships and bitter rivalries between championship contenders, as famously seen between four-time champion Alain Prost and three-time champion Ayrton Senna at McLaren in the late 1980s.
Russell said: “On a personal level, Kimi’s obviously a great guy and has lots of energy… And we’ve had no reason this year not to continue to have a great relationship.
“I think a lot of these on-track rivalries start because of on-track incidents or actions, and the truth is that he has been at a higher level than me this year.
“So, we’ve not been in that situation too often. We have had one or two races… But when it comes to the race itself, we sort of keep ourselves to ourselves and work with our individual engineers to try and get the most out of it.”
Russell is 123 points behind Antonelli in the drivers’ championship ahead of this weekend’s race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, and is one point ahead of his former team-mate and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari.
He is due to give up his seat during Friday’s opening free practice session to Mercedes test driver Frederik Vesti, potentially giving Antonelli an early advantage if the Italian recovers from a virus in time to compete.
Russell added that finishing runner-up to Antonelli in the title race would mean little to him.
“I think for every driver on the grid, there’s only one position that matters and it’s P1. To be best of the rest is not really something you dream of as a kid,” he said.
“Of course, I want to finish as high as possible. I want to win as many races as possible.
“But what’s more important to me is to finish the season on a positive momentum rather than necessarily that final order.”
