George Russell has admitted it is difficult to accept the setbacks affecting his F1 2026 title challenge after a frustrating second-place finish in Barcelona.
The title favourite heading into the campaign, Russell sits third in the standings behind Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli and Hamilton after seven races.
The winner of the opening round of the season, Russell suffered a battery issue in Canada while leading, and a dubious penalty in Monaco that dropped him outside of the points.
Following the Barcelona GP, Russell sits 50 points behind Antonelli – a figure that could have been 71 points were it not for the Italian’s late-race retirement.
Having started from pole, Russell never held a commanding position in Barcelona, with both Hamilton and Antonelli remaining firmly in contact.
A canny Ferrari strategy then forced Mercedes into a compromised strategy, allowing Hamilton to steal the win while Antonelli’s late-race pace proved enough to steal second away too – albeit briefly.
“It’s tough, you know. It’s not an easy sport,” Russell told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media in Barcelona.
“We work every single day of our life to achieve this dream, and when you know things out of your control go against you, it’s difficult to accept.
“And if the performance isn’t where you hope for it to be, it’s also difficult to accept.
“But you have to continuously dig deep, every single day, dig deep, remind yourself why you’re doing this.
“Lando [Norris] said, when we were younger, looking up to the likes of Lewis (Hamilton) and dreaming of being sat here [in the FIA press conference]… we probably wouldn’t have been being able to believe this 15 years ago, that we’d be sharing the podium together.
“Now, of course, we both would have been preferred to sit in the middle from the three of us, but this is why we do it.”
Such has been the trajectory of Russell’s season that he insists he’s no longer thinking about the championship.
“I’m thinking about just controlling my controllables,” he said.
“Friday and Saturday I felt like I did everything to the best of my ability and got absolutely the best result possible on almost every single lap I did.
“Today I made a great start. The first stint was solid, but the last two stints on the hard wasn’t good enough, so my head is coming out of this race thinking the performance was not strong enough, and I need to make some improvements.
“It’s a challenging circuit. It’s the first race of the year where we’ve had major tyre degradation, the winner on a three-stop strategy.
“The six races prior have been an easy one stop, so totally different ball game today.
“We’ll reassess in Austria, but as I said, I’m going to control my controllables and keep on trying to apply the pressure.”
