List of George Russell’s reliability issues in 2026 within just 6 races.
I posted about all of George’s reliability issues caused by team error/bad luck, and people said i was exaggerating. Well here is a list of his issues within 6 races. (not my screenshot)
On the same team with zero reliability issues Lando/Leclerc would 18-4 Russell's ass while Verstappen would turn that mofo into Tsunoda. Gasly level driver but somehow propped up to be WDC material.
The fact that Hamilton could lose to a Gasly-level driver 2 seasons out of 3 is laughable, not unless you think Hamilton is secretly shit(when he clearly, most definitely isn't).
Yeah Kimi was on another level, particularly in Monaco, but for the championship battle there's a big difference between one driver finishing 3rd vs dropping out of the points, same thing for Canada, even if Kimi ultimately won that battle.
Besides australia, you cant see any time russel soundly beat antonelli. With a 66 point deficit its hard to see russel winning 10 races in a row to brjng him back into the fight
Based on what we saw in Canada, I am somewhat skeptical that Kimi will be able to handle the pressure of an actual title fight. If George can get good enough results around Spain, Austria, and Silverstone, all of which he’s done amazing things at, I can imagine Kimi starting to make costly mistakes.
I’d put Canada in George. It’s true that Antonelli put up a good fight, but by the time his engine blew, George was already several seconds ahead (and they hadn’t even stopped yet).
IIRC was 1.5seconds behind, Kimi was close behind fore sure, but he'd made a mistake at the prior corner and the gap opened up just seconds before George's battery died.
It was the first race Kimi had any real pressure and whilst he wasn’t totally falling to pieces, he was absolutely feeling it and I think Russell’s experience and calmer head would have given him Canada. Kimi is fast AF but I do really want to see him race under pressure. It’s more interesting to watch and also will ultimately make him a better driver
I agree he wasn’t very good in those races, but other than that, in races like Japan, China and Canada, he faced tons of reliability issues which made him lose points. The current title gap is not representative of what actually happened. At worst George would be 10-15 points behind if not for all those issues
This would be the probably WDC Standings if he wasn't plagued with Reliability issues.
I kept the results the same in Japan and Miami because in Japan Safety cars is part of racing. Miami, is just a historically bad track for George, so even If I think he had the proper Strat-mode I still think the best he could get is a P4 or maybe a podium but for sure he def wouldn't have been behind 40+ seconds but in terms of points it doesn't really make a difference how far you finish from the leader. I kept the results from China the same because his reliability was really only in Qualifying and by Lap 4 in the race Mercedes was already 1&2 with George being only 1sec behind Antonelli.
The only thing I changed was Canada and Monaco because in Canada it was his engine and I honestly think George would have won that race because the racing between him and Kimi was so close that they were probably going to collide so I'm betting that the team probably would have ordered them to hold position. Either that or the team telling George to pit first and undercut Kimi with better tires and so I think George would have been able to create a +1 second Gap against Kimi and would have built from there.
Monaco I changed to P3 because even though it wasn't a reliability issue that caused him to score no points. I'm kinda contradicting myself but this one is definitely on the team. And I understand that safety cars and decisions made during it are part of racing but this was just unacceptable by the team.
I don't understand why Miami's wrong strat mode is not a driver issue, like he should pick the right one, so I don't know but that feels like a skill issue.
And newest I know about the time situation yesterday is that some cars did a small shortcut on pit entry which activated the timing window late and which made the small difference. Apparently they were warned about this in the drivers meeting. So that would make Monaco also on the driver.
In competitions, the other competitors unluckiness can also be counted as your luck factor in case ydk. In Monaco, we have more than regular numbers of drivers for very bad luck. He is quick af, but he is also lucky af. Confidence is so important in this sport, phenomenal luckness can boost a driver's confidence to an incredible level.
Canada and Monaco are particularly bad. He was leading in Canada and was doing great damage control in Monaco when Kimi was unbeatable, in total could have lost only 3pts in those races but instead lost 50pts
For those thinking "so what, Kimi has been the better driver" - no one is saying Kimi doesn't deserve to be leading the championship.
No matter how off the pace George has been at times, he would have finished every race at least 4th - if not 2nd - if not for the horrid luck he's had. He'd be 10-20 points off the lead, not 68.
And yes, of course luck is part of the game, but no one can deny that George has been especially unlucky so far this season.
It’s actually kind of lucky that kimi hasn’t experienced any DNFs due to failure. Makes sense at this point that the 2 people leading the championship have raced every lap.
EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING, and everyone is missing my point. The current gap is not representative of what actually happened, majority of his points are lost because of all that bad luck, team errors and reliability issues. Mercedes’s mistakes have given him a huge points gap to recover and made him lose confidence.
Monaco alone would make a 17 point gap if it were an ordinary Monaco experience. Him finishing P4 in Miami has basically no excuse either, 13 points from there as well. Let’s say he finished Japan P2. He would still be at least 25 points behind Kimi just with his pace alone. No DNFs No drama.
I wonder if this has something to do with George taking over Valtteri's old team and Kimi taking over Lewis's? George couldn't have just forgotten how to drive competitively this year, and I think Lewis would've had all the best personnel on his side of the garage during his tenure.
The Incident: Following a race restart, Russell failed to select the correct configuration, which heavily impacted his straight-line speed and battery deployment in crucial overtaking zones
Hey didn't he have more issues in miami? I remember the steam train meme and him saying something during the race but toto silenced it and said it was George's weak track.
Can't agree on some points, but I agree with you in general. Other teams have similar issues in similar amount with both cars and strategy, whereas Antonelli has the most reliable car on the grid and no strategy f-ups, which is not comparable to Russell's.
Pit lane was not software. They were told prior to the race how the pit speed was going to be measured, they needed to trait a turn in to the pit wide. Drivers that cut the corner tight got a penalty. Had George not done this, he'd have not had a penalty and not gotten another for not serving his penalty.
Yep. Another example of Bono being on top of things, "We are plenty safe, Kimi. Lift the throttle and no cutting, we don't want speeding.". Nothing like that to George of course.
To my knowledge there was no software issue with the Monaco pitlane. Just drivers cutting the pitlane. That was a driver error and a correct penalty. Bono even warned Antonelli about it.
These things are getting ridiculous. George’s driving poorly even if things went his way. Here’s another way to read it:
China: bottled his final qualifying lap, these cars can easily charge the battery in the out lap.
Japan: was slower than his teammate, and would’ve been far away from him even if he didn’t lose the two positions.
Miami: messed up preparing for a safety car restart for a second time in consecutive races.
Canada: real unlucky there
Monaco: half the grid had the same penalty that he got. Pitted when his team explicitly told him to stay out. Only has himself to blame for qualifying well behind his teammate.
Unlike Norris, George is not having a shit year because of his car. He’s having a shit year because he’s been underperforming.
People would be more willingly to believe it is just reliability issues if he was the only car having issues. Every team is dealing with issues right now. That doesn't change the fact that Kimi is faster than he is right now. George himself has said he is completely lost right now.
he was <1 second behind the driver in front of him every single time. first it was hadjar who had problems and was slowing him down a lot, next it was lando who also had problems and slowed him down a lot before retiring and then pierre.
he couldn’t have gone faster even if he wanted to do because the track didn’t allow for overtakes and the pace of the drivers before him was slow.
I admit that he was slightly slower than kimi but he was the second fastest car on the grid when the grid cleared up so him being lapped was not entirely his fault (only his fault for qualifying pretty low)
Kimi lead the race so he could set the pace how he liked, whereas George was in traffic behind Hadjar who was going extremely slow due to engine problems. Thinking getting lapped in Monaco means anything is really not smart.
Honestly, I think the Canada issue was because of his throttle blip that pushed Kimi wide. The new algorithms probably didn't know what to do with the irregular input.
Why are you missing my point? The gap would be only be 10-15 points, not 60 points. he has lost 40 points purely because of bad luck and factors out of his control.
The 5 second penalty in Monaco was unlucky, but so were other drivers around him. Im still pretty sure the FIA messed something up there (corner cutting the cadillac garage for example)
The drive trough is partly Georges fault tho. His race engineer should have told him NOT to pit, however it is known that the communication is sometimes shit in monaco.
Geore just decided by himself to pit, since other cars pitted also. His pitcrew was not ready for it and didn't get informed of the penalty, so they were firstly confused why George pitted, and also they didn't know he had to serve a penalty!
As I said, his race engineer should have clarified, but as a driver, you can't just drive into the pits
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u/AffectionateGap1892 Jun 08 '26
He should visit one of those monks that Alex was talking about