{"id":37060,"date":"2026-06-08T22:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T22:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/37060\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T22:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T22:29:15","slug":"george-russell-must-beat-kimi-antonelli-in-barcelona-to-save-f1-title-hopes-says-david-coulthard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/37060\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell must beat Kimi Antonelli in Barcelona to save F1 title hopes, says David Coulthard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Formula 1 driver and broadcaster David Coulthard<\/a> argued George Russell<\/a> must defeat his Mercedes<\/a> team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the Spanish Grand Prix in order to keep his 2026 championship dreams alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Antonelli made history on Sunday, becoming the youngest-ever winner of the Monaco Grand Prix. The 19-year-old survived a chaotic race start, a late safety car and the race restart to successfully convert pole position to his fifth consecutive win of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In contrast, Russell, who had been second in the drivers’ championship before Monaco, suffered multiple penalties and finished outside of the points in 13th. As a result, the Briton is now third in the standings after being overtaken by Lewis Hamilton<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Up To Speed<\/a> podcast, Coulthard argued: “He needs to show he can take a pole in Barcelona, and assuming the car is quick enough, of course, he just needs to be beating\u00a0Kimi.<\/p>\n

“Let\u2019s be honest. If he doesn\u2019t beat Kimi, it\u2019s over. No World Championship.”<\/p>\n

Former F1 TV presenter and co-host of the Up To Speed podcast Will Buxton added: “You can say for as long as you want, ‘All I need is the car. All I need is the opportunity.’ Well, guess what? You\u2019ve got the car. You\u2019ve got the opportunity. And you\u2019re having your arse handed to you.”<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Erik Junius<\/p>\n

It is still early in the season, but as it stands after the first six rounds, Russell sits 68 points behind his team-mate.<\/p>\n

While the British driver won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and the Chinese sprint race, he has not won a race since. He encountered technical issues during qualifying for the Chinese Grand\u00a0Prix, had his strategy hampered by a safety car at the Japanese Grand Prix and was forced to retire from the lead of the Canadian Grand Prix with car issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So it has not been all down to a lack of performance from the 28-year-old, but as he struggles to put points on the board,\u00a0Antonelli is extending his lead as the youngest driver to lead a championship.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Formula 1 driver and broadcaster David Coulthard argued George Russell must defeat his Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[17799,92,13791,17801,315,17798,17795,17797,17800,17796,1699],"class_list":["post-37060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-barcelona","tag-david-coulthard","tag-f1-monaco-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-george-russell","tag-george-russell-must-beat-kimi-antonelli-in-barcelona-to-save-f1-title-hopes","tag-mercedes","tag-monaco-gp","tag-says-david-coulthard","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}