David Coulthard thinks George Russell will have to use this season to ‘build some character’. The Mercedes driver was hit by technical misfortune at various moments or fell victim to bad timing and costly penalties. According to Coulthard, Russell must learn from these setbacks, although he fears that the current gap to Kimi Antonelli is too large to bridge.
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Russell is 59 points behind his teammate Antonelli halfway through the season, who leads the championship. Since his victory in Melbourne, the Brit has been plagued by problems. Engine issues in China, Canada, and Belgium, an unfortunately timed safety car in Japan, multiple penalties in Monaco, and recently a failure at the start of the Hungarian GP. As a result, the Mercedes star stands at ‘only’ two wins in 2026, compared to six victories by his younger teammate.
“It was a shock. How much bad luck can one person have?” Coulthard wondered on the Up to Speed podcast. “On the one hand, that bad luck is something the team has to learn to deal with. On the other hand, George (Russell, ed.) is no longer in top form. It’s like with a tennis player – he can get a high ball and easily win the point with a smash, but then hits it into the net because he’s overthinking it.”
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Is George Russell’s experience a disadvantage?
According to the Scot, Antonelli benefits precisely from his fearlessness, while Russell has entered a difficult mental phase due to all the setbacks. “George has reached a phase of the season where, as an older driver, he has to take all the hits. Kimi (Antonelli, ed.) drives very instinctively; apart from his performance in Barcelona, that has brought him many successes.”
“Experience is useful, but the advantage of a youthful driver is that he doesn’t know those challenges,” Coulthard emphasized. “With all that experience, you do know what it’s like to be challenged, to struggle, and to miss momentum.” For that reason, Coulthard has little confidence in a comeback in the second half of the season. “We saw last year with Max Verstappen that it is possible to make up a big points deficit,” he noted. But even Sylvester Stallone wouldn’t write a Rocky movie where someone makes a comeback after so many hits,” he concluded with a wink. “This year is about building character for George.”
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