Antonelli-Russell contrast could hardly be more stark

Race winner Kimi Antonelli swimming in the Monaco harbour after winning the grand prix

Image source, ReutersImage caption,

Kimi Antonelli - who jumped in the harbour to celebrate victory - is the youngest driver to win the Monaco Grand Prix

ByAndrew BensonF1 Correspondent in Monaco

Published39 minutes ago

The contrast between the Mercedes drivers - and supposed title rivals - after the Monaco Grand Prix could hardly have been more stark.

Kimi Antonelli, who had driven a perfect weekend to deliver a fifth consecutive win in utterly dominant style, talked about it being "an incredible moment to live".

His team-mate George Russell, who finished 13th after a day to forget for reasons largely out of his control, said he was "beyond frustration" and "in a state of struggling to comprehend what is going on".

Antonelli, 19, heads to the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix next weekend with a championship lead of 66 points - a remarkable gap after just six races. And it's not even over Russell, who has been leapfrogged by Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton. Russell is a further two points behind.

For Antonelli, the superlatives just keep on coming. And in a season of something close to perfection, this was arguably his best performance yet.

Ferrari went to Monaco as favourites but their fastest car was only third on the grid. They were beaten by both Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Antonelli, and Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff described the lap with which the Italian beat the four-time champion as "unbelievable".

The same word could be applied to his race.

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This was another test for Antonelli. Pole position was one thing, but he had lost positions at every single start this year, and he knew if he did so again here in Monaco, the win would likely be gone.

He was helped by the engine problems that stopped Verstappen and ended his race, but having converted his pole into a lead over Hamilton, Antonelli was in a league of his own.

Nearly three seconds clear after two laps, five after 10, he had to back off to cool overheating brakes.

After a further 10 laps of that, he put his foot down again, and he was more than 20 seconds up the road when the late chaos that created the dramatic end to the race began to unfold.

"I just felt really at one with the car and was able to set a good rhythm with high intensity and the car was responding really well," he said. "I was surprised, but it was one of those days when everything clicks."

As for the championship, he is keeping his feet firmly on the ground, well aware there is a long way to go - no-one knows how long, in fact, given the uncertainty over a few races as a result of the war between the US/Israel and Iran.

"It is a great moment," Antonelli said. "Every weekend is different tracks and require different needs but I am just going to try to keep pushing, and keep raising the bar as much as possible."

Russell 'struggling to comprehend' issues

For his part, Russell looked on course to rescue a podium from a difficult qualifying session, after which he had admitted for the first time that he was struggling in the car compared to Antonelli.

But a penalty for speeding in the pit lane led to his race unravelling.

In the late chaos, that proved Monaco - as ever - does not need overtaking to produce a dramatic race, Russell came in for fresh tyres.

When he did, the rules say he needed to serve his five-second penalty then. But Mercedes failed to do so. And that means an automatic drive-through penalty. Wolff held his hand up and said it was "clearly our mistake".

With the field compacted after the red flag that followed the second of two crashes at Antony Noghes, he served the penalty two laps after the restart and that dropped him out of the points.

Russell, 28, cut a forlorn figure afterwards as he contemplated the series of misfortunes that have derailed his season.

"It's just struggling to comprehend how on earth this season has panned out in the way it has," he said.

He ran through the problems. The timing of the safety car in Japan that handed the lead to Antonelli when Russell had been ahead. The retirement from the lead in Canada last time out.

"Could have won the race last week, could have maybe had P3 or P4 today," Russell said. "That's 40 points down the drain for things outside of my control."

The fact he had no responsibility for all this meant, he said, that it was "an incredibly difficult pill to swallow - not a lot, and the whole season could look totally different".

All of which is true, but he is also facing the reality that Antonelli is showing him the way even if his luck was not so bad.

Antonelli took pole in China despite the same front wing problem as afflicted Russell. Mercedes felt he might have won Japan anyway - and he was on pole, too, and had dropped back only because of a bad start.

In Miami, he wiped the floor with Russell, and while Russell took pole in Canada and was leading when he retired, Antonelli was all over him in both sprint and grand prix and the win was a long way from secure.

The gap between the two in qualifying in Monaco was a chasm at 0.394 seconds, and Russell said he was "a bit bamboozled".

The situation between Russell and Antonelli is not dissimilar to that between McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri last year, when the Australian got a flying start to a season Norris had started as favourite.

The difference is that when Norris was struggling to feel the front of the McLaren, he acknowledged it pretty much straight away, and the team were open about what was going on.

Mercedes driver George Russell coming down a staircase at the Monaco Grand Prix

Image source, EPAImage caption,

George Russell has not finished on the podium since the second race of the season in China

Russell had continued to insist everything was well - until Monaco. But now it's out in the open, and he knows he has work to do to turn his season around in terms of pace. Getting on top of what he can control is the key for Russell. The luck, he has to hope, will return one day.

"Yesterday was a bad day for me," he said. "And I take, I accept that. I need to get myself out of… yeah, I don't know, how we keep ending up in the same position. Things will need to improve, for sure. But I know on clean weekends what I can do.

"I'm in a very weird state of mind because I've had very low moments in my career where I've maybe had a run of two or three bad races on my own personal performance. I've never had a run of bad luck as such like this.

"It didn't happen when the car was a P7 car two years ago or a P4, P3 car last year.

"Now I've got the car, it feels very painful, but a long way to go. I still very much believe in myself. I still believe we're going to be fighting for race wins for the end of this year. There's no reason why we won't be continuing into next year, but right now it's tough."

Wolff said: "Luck swings in your direction, and then sometimes it doesn't. And it's not a question of not knowing how to drive. It's about having a car underneath that you feel confident with, and that you can go fast. And that's the fact.

"Formula 1 is about physics and not mystics. You don't unlearn how to drive, and you don't become a miracle wonder driver. I'm not stressed at all for his performances, because we know he's one of the best.

"In Monaco, even more than on many other circuits, you need to be one with the car and really in the zone. That's also why on George's side, once you lose that confidence, it's very difficult to be fast here.

"George is really good at analysing and assessing the situation, and we forget, and I told him, when was Montreal, a week ago, two weeks ago? He was on pole, right? He won the sprint race, he was leading the main grand prix, there was no discussion about lack of speed, so that was two weeks ago.

"So, we've got to stay with both feet on the ground, work through the data, see why this one was a difficult one, and Miami was a difficult one, but it is not a pattern that I have seen through the season.

"I couldn't wish for a better combination of the two in a car, and I have no doubt that George will come back very strong."