Russell at a loss to explain United States GP struggles as Mercedes man finishes in P8

George Russell was perplexed with how his United States Grand Prix played out after finishing down in eighth, while team mate Kimi Antonelli sealed an exemplary win to leave him on the brink of title glory.

While the young Italian celebrated his ninth victory of the season, Russell was at a loss to explain what happened to his pace around the Circuit of The Americas. Compounding his struggles, the Briton was also hit with a five-second time penalty early on in the race after the stewards determined he had left the track and gained an advantage on the McLaren of Oscar Piastri on the opening lap.

With Russell having to serve that penalty on his one and only pit stop of the race, the delay helped drop him further down the order after he had initially started the Grand Prix in sixth.

Instead, the 28-year-old spent much of the rest of the encounter unable to find a way past Piastri and was left to settle for eighth, 1.6s behind the McLaren man on the road.

“Yeah, it was a very bad day,” Russell admitted afterwards. “Don’t really know why.

“[I] probably did six laps from the 50 [where] the pace was okay. The others were well off the pace, so I don’t know where the performance has gone, need to understand it. I need to come back stronger for Mexico.”

With Antonelli’s success, the Italian now stands just two points way from sealing the title – he leads Russell in the Drivers’ Championship by 123 points with 125 left to fight for.

Additionally, the Briton also faces a fight to retain second place with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton now just a point behind following his fourth-place result in Austin.

Asked how frustrating his issues were, given how successful the car on the other side of the Mercedes garage was, Russell said: “Yeah, without a doubt.

“Right now, I don’t have the answers and, if I did, I wouldn’t be in this position. So, yeah, I need to try and work it out with my team.”

Formula 1 rolls immediately onto the Mexico City Grand Prix next weekend (October 30-November 1) with Antonelli looking increasingly likely to be crowned the sport’s youngest ever World Champion sooner rather than later.