Russell makes striking title admission as Antonelli widens gap after Canada

The British driver, who had looked on course for his strongest weekend since the opening round in Australia, saw his race unravel on lap 31 when an engine reliability issue struck while he was leading. Mercedes teammate Antonelli, who had been closely shadowing Russell throughout, wasted no time capitalising on the misfortune and went on to comfortably claim another victory around the Montreal circuit.

Antonelli’s win – his fourth in a row – saw him extend his lead at the top of the drivers’ standings, while Russell slipped to second, now 43 points adrift. When asked about the growing gap to the Italian, Russell conceded that Antonelli now appears firmly in control of the title fight.

“Right now, it's his to lose; there are so many points ahead. It feels like the gods don't want me to be in this fight when I look at the safety car timing in Japan, breaking down in China Q3, fighting for pole, breaking down from the lead here today but you know pressures off go out enjoy every single race try and win every single race and I've got nothing to lose so I don't want to be stood here talking like that it is of course frustrating and I want to be in that fight hopefully the luck turns” Russell said to GPBlog. The six-time race winner would, however, still express pride in his overall outing in Canada, despite the frustrating manner in which it ended.

"I'm proud of my weekend. Pole in the Sprint, won the Sprint, pole in Qualifying, I was leading when I stopped. I had a good battle with Kimi. I don't feel like there was anything more I could have done this weekend. I will leave satisfied. I'm pretty damn frustrated with what happened but what more can I do?” Russell noted.

While Russell continues to rue how his weekend panned out in Canada, Antonelli has continued to insist he is not thinking about the Formula 1 title. The Italian extended his championship lead again in Montreal after surviving an intense early fight with his teammate before the Briton retired with a failure. Even with a 43-point lead in the standings, he refused to get carried away.

“I’m not thinking about the championship,” he said when asked about his lead in the standings. “I’m just focusing on race by race. I think it’s still very early to talk about that,” Antonelli added.

The Bologna native also offered an honest assessment of his fight with Russell, admitting both drivers pushed things close to the limit, as they had done the previous day. “It was a tough fight. I think a couple of times was maybe a little bit on the edge, but we were going at each other. We were both pushing, and we both wanted to win.”

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff had himself a weekend full of mixed feelings and hair-raising moments in Montreal. While his team had something to cheer about with Antonelli winning the Canadian Grand Prix, Russell on the other hand, could not finish the race.

Prior to that, both drivers had been involved in a close, hard-fought battle through both the Sprint and the Grand Prix at the Montreal circuit, and Wolff was candid about how he experienced it from the pit wall. For the Mercedes team principal, an internal duel is a double-edged sword, and that feeling is anything but new at the Brackley outfit. The Austrian described the situation afterwards as he felt it: happy for the winner, but disappointed for the loser.

“As a team, we have had so many situations where it is bittersweet. You are extremely happy for one driver but gutted for the other one. We half enjoyed watching how they fought it out. Every time we thought about saying, ‘we have had enough for the moment’, the next two laps were fast again,” Wolff explained during his interaction with the media following the conclusion of the Grand Prix.