George Russell sent 'overthinking' warning as F1 title hopes fade

Former F1 driver David Coulthard has highlighted George Russell must not fall into the trap of “overthinking” his driving as he looks to overcome his deficit in the drivers' championship.

Russell began the year in positive form, winning the opening round of the year in Melbourne.

However, since then, Russell has triumphed just once while team-mate Kimi Antonelli has taken to the top step of the podium on six occasions to establish a healthy lead in the drivers' standings.

Russell sits 59 points down on Antonelli at the season's halfway point, with the latter now the clear favourite for title success.

While Antonelli has often been the faster driver, Russell has been hindered by reliability issues and on-track mishaps.

"It's been a shocker,” Coulthard told the Up To Speed podcast. “How much bad luck can one person have?

"On one side, that bad luck is something that the team have to work through. On the other side, George is now not on the crest of a wave. 

“You know when you see a tennis player, they've got the high ball and it's going to be an easy smash to win the point, and then they put it in the net because they start overthinking it.

"George is in that phase of the season where Kimi is just instinctively driving and having, other than Barcelona, some pretty good reliability, whereas George has been taking the punches.”

Coulthard argued that Antonelli's lack of F1 experience may be a benefit for the Italian in his pursuit of the title this year, as he rated Russell's odds of making a successful year as astronomically low.

“He [Russell] is a little bit older, experience is a good thing, but the benefit of youth is you don't know what you don't know,” he said.

“The downside of experience is you do know the challenges and the difficulty and momentum and all those good things.

"As we know from Max Verstappen last year, it's still possible to come back from that points deficit. 

“But listen, not even Sylvester Stallone would write a Rocky movie with that sort of comeback from all the punches that he's taken. So it's going to be a character-building year for George."