George Russell has revealed why he left the Mexico City Grand Prix circuit rather than joining Mercedes’ celebrations for Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 2026 Formula 1 World Championship victory. After congratulating his team-mate and family, the British driver decided to leave with his partner Carmen Montero Mundt, go out for dinner and try to forget another deeply frustrating race. Speaking ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix, Russell admitted that he had reached his emotional limit after a season filled with repeated disappointments.
“I had to leave,” Russell explained, revealing for the first time what had prompted him to miss both the championship celebrations and his mandatory post-race media commitments in Mexico. His departure subsequently resulted in a €5,000 FIA fine for Mercedes, adding another unwanted consequence to an already difficult weekend.
George Russell explains why he left Kimi Antonelli’s F1 title celebrations
While Andrea Kimi Antonelli was celebrating his first Formula 1 world championship with Mercedes, George Russell had something very different in mind. The British driver wanted to leave the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, enjoy a proper dinner and stop thinking about a season that had become an almost continuous source of frustration.
Russell had congratulated Antonelli and his family immediately after the race, acknowledging his team-mate’s achievement before departing the circuit alongside Carmen Montero Mundt, his girlfriend and future wife. However, he did not attend the party organised by Mercedes to celebrate its new world champion.
He also failed to appear for his compulsory interviews with journalists, leading the FIA to impose a €5,000 fine on the German team. The decision became another talking point following the Mexican Grand Prix, with Russell’s missed media commitments and the resulting FIA penalty attracting attention in the aftermath of Antonelli’s title triumph.
That same evening, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff revealed that Russell had appeared deeply dejected. Nevertheless, the Austrian explained that he understood why his driver had chosen not to remain at the circuit.
Four days later, speaking at Interlagos, the 28-year-old finally explained what had been going through his mind. Although he normally enjoys speaking with journalists after races, Russell admitted that he had absolutely no desire to do so that particular Sunday.
“I’m getting out of here, having a nice dinner and thinking about something other than this s*** season,” he recalled telling himself.
Mexico GP energy problem and Isack Hadjar penalty push Russell to breaking point
Russell’s disappointment was not simply about watching his younger team-mate celebrate a championship he had hoped to win himself. What hurt most was the way another promising race had unravelled despite his belief that he had the pace to achieve an excellent result.
The Mercedes driver had started from the front row, having missed Lewis Hamilton’s pole position by just nine thousandths of a second. However, his hopes of challenging at the front were immediately compromised by a problem with the car’s energy deployment, which caused him to lose several positions.
His afternoon became even more difficult following contact with Isack Hadjar. Russell received a ten-second penalty for the incident and eventually finished sixth, another disappointing outcome after starting the Grand Prix with realistic ambitions of fighting for victory or a podium.
The difficulties were also highlighted in the analysis of how the 2026 Mexican Grand Prix unfolded, including Russell’s energy deployment problem, his collision with Hadjar and the penalty that further compromised his race.
For much of the season, the British driver had continued responding to setbacks, repeatedly finding the determination to recover and start again. In Mexico, however, he felt he had finally reached his limit. The frustration of another missed opportunity was compounded by everything he had experienced over the preceding months.
Congratulating Antonelli was something Russell genuinely wanted to do. Remaining at the circuit to celebrate, on the other hand, was more than he felt capable of managing at that moment.
George Russell reveals troubling Mercedes statistic: 14 difficult races out of 20
Before discussing his departure openly in Brazil, Russell had already broken his silence through a lengthy Instagram message published in the days following the Mexican Grand Prix.
In that message, he congratulated Antonelli on winning the championship and acknowledged his team-mate’s achievements. At the same time, he explained just how difficult the previous months had been and how repeatedly he had struggled to recover from disappointment.
“It’s the first season of my career in which I’ve had more bad days than good ones,” Russell wrote, reflecting on a campaign that had tested his ability to respond to adversity.
His frustration was also supported by a striking statistic uncovered during a detailed review with his race engineer after the Mexican Grand Prix. Of the 20 races completed, Russell said that only six had passed without problems.
That meant 14 of his first 20 Grands Prix had featured at least one setback, although those incidents were not necessarily all technical in nature. The British driver compared those figures with previous seasons, when such difficulties had generally occurred much less frequently.
The repeated problems had prevented Russell from establishing any real consistency. Instead, much of his season had been spent attempting to recover from one disappointment before another arrived.
His difficult campaign has also raised questions within Mercedes, with Toto Wolff discussing Russell’s struggles compared with Andrea Kimi Antonelli as the Italian continued his march towards the championship.
Russell admits his own mistakes contributed to disappointing 2026 season
Despite the frequency of the setbacks, Russell has refused to place all the responsibility on bad luck or Mercedes. He recognises that some of his own performances have fallen short of the standards he expects, meaning the explanation for his disappointing championship campaign cannot be reduced to reliability problems alone.
For the British driver, the most difficult aspect has been the constant need to recover psychologically from setbacks without ever finding the continuity required to build a serious championship challenge.
His assessment offers a sharp contrast with Antonelli’s experience. While the Italian has enjoyed a remarkable second season in Formula 1, culminating in an emotional first world championship victory and renewed ambitions for the future, Russell has spent much of 2026 trying to understand why his own opportunity slipped away.
George Russell looks to move on at Brazilian GP after Mercedes title disappointment
Russell arrived at Interlagos determined to begin moving forward, although he knows that his 2026 season can no longer become the championship campaign he originally imagined.
Mercedes already has its world champion in Andrea Kimi Antonelli, whose success has brought another Drivers’ Championship to the Brackley-based team. For Russell, however, the final part of the season is about recovering from the disappointment of failing to achieve that same ambition.
The contrast between the two Mercedes drivers was particularly evident in Mexico. While Antonelli celebrated the biggest achievement of his career, Russell felt the need to escape the circuit and leave another difficult weekend behind him.
Now, as Formula 1 moves on to Brazil, Russell must find a way to put behind him the season in which he had hoped to become world champion himself.
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