Russell says Mercedes reliability issues have hit season

George Russell has said he is hoping the run of bad luck that has affected his season will end soon, after his title hopes were ended at the Mexico City Grand Prix. Kimi Antonelli won the championship in Mexico, while Russell suffered a deployment issue at the start that dropped him from second to sixth. He was later given a 10-second time penalty for a collision with Isack Hadjar and left the circuit without taking part in the post-race celebrations.

Ahead of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, Russell said he had no high expectations but was looking forward to next year and was praying that the issues outside his control would sort themselves out. He explained that he had reviewed every race with his engineers and found that Mercedes had only had six trouble-free races this season. He said the team needed to question problems more deeply given how often they occurred.