After teammate Kimi Antonelli won back-to-back races in China and Japan to head into Formula 1's unexpected five-week break due to two April Grand Prix cancellations in the Middle East, Mercedes' George Russell claimed his teammate didn't actually have any momentum.
He then basically claimed that bad timing and misfortune were the only reasons he didn't start the year three for three over Antonelli.
Then came the Miami Grand Prix. Antonelli prevailed again, and for the second race in a row, Russell failed to score a podium finish in his rocketship Mercedes. Antonelli, meanwhile, hasn't placed lower than second all year and now owns a 20-point lead in the world championship standings.
George Russell warming up Max Verstappen's seat?
The Max Verstappen to Mercedes rumor is nothing new. In fact, it's the modern version of Lewis Hamilton to Ferrari. Year after year, nothing happened. And nothing happened. And nothing happened.
Yet the whole time, it felt inevitable, and then one day, it finally happened.
It was that move, which involved Hamilton signing a $446 million contract with the Scuderia, that prompted Toto Wolff to sign Antonelli, who was only 17 years old at the time of Hamilton's announcement, alongside Russell for 2025.
And Russell did what many expected him to in 2025, handily beating his rookie teammate across the board in every major statistical category.
Yet even for 2026, Wolff reportedly tried to sign the four-time world champion Verstappen again. It wasn't announced until late in 2025 that Russell and Antonelli had both signed extensions to remain with Mercedes.
Neither driver has been confirmed in Mercedes' roster for 2027, and seeing as how the Silver Arrows entered the 2026 season as heavy favorites to win both championships, it made sense. In a championship or bust season, neither driver could afford any significant slip ups.
Antonelli has held up his end of the bargain so far, aside from his practice crash in Melbourne, from which he still managed to bounce back, qualifying and finishing second.
Russell, of course, has already said that he's locked in at Mercedes through at least another year, having signed a "multi-year" extension a year ago.
But Daniel Ricciardo said the same thing about McLaren regarding his 2023 seat in 2022 amid his struggles. He was promptly replaced by Oscar Piastri, and his contract buyout was around $18 million.
The reality is that "multi-year" in Formula 1 almost never means anything other than "single-year, with options". And even "almost" is generous.
Even Max Verstappen's five-year, $275 million extension, which went into effect in 2024, was rumored to be vulnerable after only a single season, with Wolff having tried to sign him for 2025 as Hamilton's replacement before turning to Antonelli.
So does anybody believe for one second that Russell's seat is safe?
If the answer is yes, we're not sure why.
Of course, that's not to say this couldn't turn out to be a major overreaction. Early in 2025, Piastri was consistently finishing ahead of Lando Norris, and Norris not only turned it around to win the world title, but did so with Piastri having even fallen behind Verstappen for second.
So Russell is correct in that a 22-race season is a long season, and anybody who can do math is correct that world championships for a 22-race season aren't handed out after just four race weekends. Or 14 races, for that matter.
But if Antonelli continues to operate like a clear Mercedes No. 1, Russell's seat is indeed going to heat up. And perhaps the only question Wolff will have to answer is whether or not he wants to deal with two No. 1 drivers, a la the Hamilton and Nico Rosberg era.
We probably know the answer to that question, because he's been trying to sign the Dutchman for close to 13 years now. And while there's always the risk of friction between two alphas, having two alphas instead of one serves another purpose, aside from constructing the best driver lineup possible: it prevents a rival from landing the other.
The fact that Verstappen and Antonelli are nine years apart in age doesn't hurt, either.
Russell can end the speculation for good by stepping up his game. But if that doesn't happen soon, the alarm bells are indeed going to sound.
And perhaps some of the battle is getting out of his own head. On multiple occasions in the past, he has let things get to him that simply don't rattle other drivers.
The same was initially true with Norris. But he overcame those struggles to become world champion. Now the pressure is on the 28-year-old Briton to do the same.
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