Whether the bad luck between Russell and Antonelli has evened out in F1 title fight

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli have been hit by unreliability, bad safety car timings and rule quirks – collectively considered as bad luck – but has it evened out between the pair after the British GP?

George Russell feels the 25-point gap to Kimi Antonelli in the Formula 1 drivers’ standings after the British Grand Prix “is probably correct” based on performance, but was unsure if the bad luck has been equally spread.

Antonelli suffered a broken wheel shield in the closing stages of the Silverstone race while he was running in second and closing in on eventual winner Charles Leclerc. After pitting twice to rectify the issue Antonelli came out in 10th, but picked up a five-second penalty for multiple track limit breaches while battling the handling issue caused by the breakage.

The penalty, coupled with the finish behind the safety car, pushed Antonelli to finish outside of the points, while Russell profited coming back from his own slow puncture earlier in the race to finish second and slash 18 points from the Italian’s championship lead.

Immediately after the race Russell was quizzed about the bad luck evening out between the two Mercedes drivers: “Whether the luck has balanced out or not, I'm not sure. However, based on my performances and based on his performances over the course of these nine races, I think probably a 25-point gap is in his favour, is probably correct.”

Russell felt the current deficit he faces to Antonelli is “fair” as he conceded his Mercedes team-mate had made the stronger start to the season.

“He has done a better job than me this year to this point, so he deserves to be ahead of me,” Russell said. “Whether it should be 25 points, whether it should be 10 points, whether it should be 35 points is a debate, but in that ballpark [is correct].

“I obviously lost 15 points as well in Monaco with the drive-through penalty. I think anywhere from 10 to 30 points behind is probably about fair.”

Is the bad luck even now between Russell and Antonelli?

While each incident of bad luck has to be taken in isolation, plotting the number of moments of misfortune and the size of the impact gives a general indication if it is truly even between Russell and Antonelli.

Russell’s power unit issue during Chinese GP qualifying hasn’t been included, given he was still able to qualify on the front row alongside Antonelli while the Italian’s superior race pace delivered him victory in the race.

Japanese GP

The first, and most obvious, pure bad luck was the timing of the safety car during the Japanese GP when Oliver Bearman crashed, which occurred just seconds after Russell exited the pits having made his stop.

That gave Antonelli and others the opportunity for a cheap pitstop, which enabled the 19-year-old to storm to victory. Russell was stuck in the dirty air of the cars ahead, resulting in fourth and a points swing of 13 in Antonelli’s favour.

Canadian GP

Russell had been on top against a feisty Antonelli in Montreal, winning the sprint and taking pole position for the grand prix. The British driver suffered an electrical failure while leading and defending from his Mercedes team-mate in the grand prix, giving a chunky 25-point gain for Antonelli.

Monaco GP

This is where it gets complicated. Looking at only Russell’s misfortune, it is fair to say he was unfairly given an initial five-second penalty for speeding the pitlane. Then Mercedes failed to serve the penalty in his pitstop under a safety car, so the penalty was upgraded to a drive-through which he served in the race and dropped him out of the points.

However, the unfair pitlane speeding penalties also apply to Lewis Hamilton, Pierre Gasly and Isack Hadjar who were all racing ahead or around him before the chaos unfolded.

So, the points loss was 25 to Antonelli in Monaco, but could have been fewer – 10 points if Russell had finished third in Monaco which he had been on course for – but in this case we’ve interpreted a pitlane speeding gaff and Mercedes’ own mistake as all bad luck for Russell and not driver error, so the 25 points gap stands.

Barcelona GP

On to Antonelli’s misfortune, who suffered a mechanical failure in Barcelona which cost him second place moments after overtaking Russell. Therefore Russell inherited second place and with it an 18-point swing back in his favour.

British GP

Russell was the first to be hit with misfortune due to a slow puncture that forced him to pit and drop down the order, initially recovering to fifth place. At that moment, Antonelli’s bigger bad luck hit while he was in second when his wheel shield broke, with the series of unfortunate events dropping him out of the points.

Russell climbed to second, gaining an extra slice of fortune when Hamilton pitted for soft tyres as Ferrari anticipated a late-race restart that never came, which handed the runner-up spot to Russell and resulted in an 18-point gain for the British driver.

The result

So, in this extreme situation of all these scenarios being accounted for but nothing else changing, Antonelli’s luck (or perhaps lack of bad luck) puts him 27 points to the good over Russell. Given the 25-point deficit between the pair after nine grand prix and four sprint events, the standings could put Russell ahead by two points in this scenario.

However, F1 world championships aren’t won in ‘if’ scenarios and hypotheticals. Both Antonelli and Russell will have more incidents occur that are out of their control which is why Russell is not sweating over those lost points. It is about controlling the controllables to give himself the best shot of closing the real 25-point gap to Antonelli and not the ‘what if’ scenarios.

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- The Autosport.com Team

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