George Russell could look to his right and see his Monaco pad through the Mercedes motorhome window across the Med.
If he had turned over his left shoulder he would have seen the pretender to this year’s world title to which he was previously clear heir presumptive. For Kimi Antonelli, the championship leader, was conducting his media session ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix at the head of a table of Italian journalists.
Russell was doing the equivalent honours with us Brits on sofas and armchairs.
The scene – Montagues and Capulets in separate corners of the same room – contained echoes of the time Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso spoke to their country’s scribblers in the McLaren motorhome. Scheming and plotting, each in his native tongue, abounded in 2007, mostly from the Spanish corner.
It is not quite that febrile – at least not yet – between Russell and Antonelli as they go into the most glamorous race of the year. But, still, tension is bubbling, and Russell knew precisely what nerve-twanging he was up to when he said on Thursday that the title was Antonelli’s ‘to lose’.
The Italian has won the last four races and leads his Silver Arrows team-mate by 43 points after five rounds.
George Russell has admitted that Kimi Antonelli is the favourite for the F1 world title this season
Russell’s Mercedes team-mate Antonelli leads the standings after five F1 races so far
Russell was outgunned in Miami but otherwise unlucky in China, Japan and Canada a fortnight ago, when an electrical engine fault ended his race cruelly while he was leading. The pair were evenly matched that dramatic afternoon in Montreal. A fine contest was cut short, Russell’s attempt to win and so trim his deficit thwarted on a weekend when he was desperate to reassert himself, having not triumphed since the opening joust in Melbourne.
Russell, wielding a stiletto surreptitiously, preys on the fact the 19-year-old is in uncharted territory.
‘I don’t think I’ve got anything to lose,’ reasoned Russell. ‘If you look at it from Kimi’s point of view, he is in a position with such a buffer he can only keep it, or he can lose it.
‘It’s his to lose, while my mindset is to enjoy every single race and try to win every one of them, the same as I’ve approached it this whole season. I’m going to fight the same.
‘I’m not going to change my mentality at all, nor am I going to let this put any more pressure on me. I don’t feel like I need to get every single result possible, because the season’s long enough that it will swing if you’re the guy on top.’
Some of Russell’s vocal online fans believe Mercedes are pulling for Antonelli – or even sabotaging the British driver.
Asked if he believed the accusation had any foundation, Russell was emphatic in defence of his team. ‘I 100 per cent believe I am not being stuffed,’ he countered. ‘I am just being unfortunate.
‘And from a team boss’s perspective, you don’t mind who wins as long as one of your drivers does. We have not been in this position for four years or five years, so they just want one of us to win.’
Along the paddock Lewis Hamilton, the legend whom Russell replaced at Mercedes, declared himself in no rush to sign a new Ferrari deal.
The question followed his team-mate Leclerc, the hometown boy in the principality, agreeing a three-year deal worth some £100million earlier in the week. Hamilton earns double that by virtue of his success and marketing value, and he has another year to run on his current contract.
So, at 41, he can afford to delay any decision on his future. ‘It is some time off,’ said the seven-time world champion of any potential renegotiation. ‘I have got a lot of time in front of me. It is not a thought I have to engage in.’
Elsewhere, bottom-of-the-table Aston Martin will be delighted to welcome back design guru Adrian Newey to the paddock on Friday as they seek their first point of the season.
The 67-year-old has missed the last four races through illness, though he has been working at home and in their Silverstone factory over the last few weeks. He also attended the F1 Commission in London on Tuesday.
Newey has his hands full.
