- Mercedes was fined 5,000 euros after George Russell left the Mexico City circuit without doing his post-race media commitments, per Motorsport.com.
- Team principal Toto Wolff gave Russell permission to leave on the day teammate Kimi Antonelli, 20, became the youngest world champion in F1 history.
- The sixth-place finish dropped Russell from second to fourth in the standings, 11 points behind Max Verstappen and nine behind Lewis Hamilton.
An Empty Media Pen, a Hearing by Phone and a Driver Wolff Let Walk Away
Toto Wolff needed one sentence to explain why George Russell never walked into the media pen at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez on Sunday. “Him staying would have actually surprised me.”
Russell started the Mexico City Grand Prix from the front row and finished sixth, with a 10-second penalty on his sheet. He did it on the afternoon his Mercedes teammate Antonelli clinched the world championship that Russell had been tipped to win. The rules still call for a driver to speak to the media after a race, and the stewards sent the bill to Mercedes: 5,000 euros, or £4,173.
The fine is small. The scene around it is bigger. A 28-year-old who entered the year as the heavy pre-season title favorite left the circuit without doing his media duties, and his own team principal said he understood why.
A Hearing He Did Not Attend
The rule behind the fine is Article B10.1.4e of the FIA sporting regulations. It makes the post-race media pen mandatory for every driver unless the FIA grants an exemption. The stewards summoned him on Sunday evening.
He did not attend that either. The stewards recorded that “the driver failed to attend the hearing and the team representative gave evidence via telephone.” What they heard from that representative was short: Russell “had left the circuit without attending the post race media commitments.”
A driver’s absence does not stop a hearing, so the stewards ruled without him. Their wording was that they “can proceed to make a determination in the case of a non attendance at a hearing,” and that “a penalty of €5,000 is imposed on the competitor.” The competitor is Mercedes. The penalty did not go to Russell personally.
Mercedes allowed Russell to leave the track early. Wolff called it “absolutely understandable” for Russell to skip the media work and leave.
A Sunday That Started on the Front Row
On Saturday Russell missed pole to Hamilton, now at Ferrari, by 0.009 seconds. He traced the gap to a decision on the final run. Russell said Hamilton, Charles Leclerc and Verstappen skipped the preparation lap, while Mercedes kept one.
“My gut told me we could do it on lap one without the preparation, but the team wanted to do the prep, so we ended up carrying the fuel for an extra lap,” Russell said at the post-qualifying press conference. “It’s such a small number, but it’s bigger than the gap to pole.”
He then described his whole season in a sentence. “It’s a little bit of a story of my season,” he said. “I think this kind of feels like I’ve never done an average lap. It’s either a terrible lap or a very strong lap.” He added: “I’ve never doubted that it’s in there.”
On Sunday the start went wrong. A deployment problem cost Russell ground on the run to the first corner. In a statement Mercedes issued after the finish, Russell said: “Unfortunately, it was a very disappointing race on my side.” He had made a good start, he said, and was in a strong position, until an issue left him without full deployment down the straight. “It’s frustrating to have the race compromised by something outside of my control but that is racing.”
On the first lap he hit Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar at Turn 6 and took the 10-second penalty. Sixth was the best the afternoon held. Antonelli finished third, which was enough for the title with four races to spare.
Russell did not join the Mercedes celebrations, but he congratulated Antonelli and his family right after the race. Wolff met Russell on the FIA scales afterward: “It was a great show of sportsmanship to go and see Kimi.” Russell’s statement carried the same message in his own words. He called the title “a thoroughly deserved championship” and said Antonelli “can be incredibly proud of what he has achieved.”
What Wolff Said
In a post-race television interview, Wolff said, “We completely let him down today again.” Then he made a point about the garage itself. “We have two drivers, we don’t have one,” he said. “The car just didn’t work for him this year.”
He called it “a very difficult moment for him” and spelled out what he owed his driver. “My aim is to provide him with the equipment and the support he needs to fight for a championship,” Wolff said.
Wolff also described the scene on the scales. “I saw George after the race on the FIA scales and obviously he’s distraught about the situation,” he said. “He’s going through a hard time, but he was also responsible in getting the young man into this team.” Wolff added that for a racing driver “this is a catastrophic moment,” and that “I’ve been in situations where it’s very difficult to cope.”
On the race itself, Wolff placed the blame on his own side. “This was a race for him to win. We had the pace in the car,” he said. “And we let him down on the first straight.” The energy delivery, he said, “is not what we thought it should be.”
Wolff also said Mexico was “another race where we didn’t give [Russell] the platform to show what he could do.” He went further: “There have been too many occasions this season where we have let George down, and he has deserved more from us.” And he added: “His contribution to what we have achieved this year has been immense.” Footage of Wolff apologizing to Russell after the race gained traction on social media.
The apology follows weeks of questions about Russell’s season. Helmut Marko wrote him off ahead of the United States Grand Prix, and Wolff disagreed in public.
A Season Russell Said Would Not Break Him
Russell’s comments were published on 29 October, days before Mexico. The Sunday silence reads differently next to them.
He had just finished eighth in Austin while Antonelli took a ninth win and stretched his lead to 123 points. “I have learnt more about myself this year than I would have liked to in all honesty,” Russell said. He pointed to the age of his rivals. “I am 28, Lewis [Hamilton] and Fernando [Alonso] are still competing extremely well in their 40s. Lewis won most of his titles in his 30s, this year will not define my career as a whole.”
Then came the line that sums up his stance. “It will not break me, it will make me stronger.”
He was just as direct about second place, a position he said would mean nothing to him. “To be best of the rest is not something you dream of as a kid,” he said. He summed up the sport this way: “This sport is kind of P1 or nothing, really.”
The season behind those words is easy to list. Baku in September brought a pole and a win. Then came an engine blow-up in Malaysia, a start from the back of the grid in Singapore, where he trailed Antonelli, and eighth place in Austin. Russell put the swing in his own terms: “I’ve never had a season like this in my career where the performance has fluctuated so much.”
He said he does not compare himself with his teammate. “We are kind of fighting against ourselves. A bit like a golfer,” he said.
Antonelli, in his second season, has nine wins to Russell’s three. Russell had already said that Mercedes struggles were landing on him rather than on his teammate. The standings after Mexico, as of 2 November, show where that left him: Antonelli on 380 points, Verstappen on 261, Hamilton on 259, Russell on 250 and Leclerc on 245. Before the race Russell held second with Hamilton one point behind. Now he sits 11 points off second, 9 behind Hamilton and 5 ahead of Leclerc.
Brazil Is the Next Test
Four races remain, and the Brazilian Grand Prix is the first of them. The weekend at Interlagos runs from Friday 6 November to Sunday 8 November, with the race on the Sunday. It is the next chance for Russell to find the consistent level he talked about in that interview. “So that is probably the priority for the last few races,” he said.
Wolff has stated his aim of giving Russell the equipment to fight for a championship. For now the fight is for position: Verstappen, Hamilton, Russell and Leclerc are separated by 16 points in the race for second. Whether the driver who left Mexico in silence returns to Interlagos with the lap he says he knows is in there is the story the next four weekends will tell.
