When a Formula 1 driver in a title fight stands in front of cameras and names the tracks his car will go slow at, it is worth paying attention. George Russell did exactly that after Miami, and the list he gave matches almost line-for-line the circuits that ended Oscar Piastri's 2025 championship.
Russell's framing was unusually direct. "I just struggle on these low grip circuits," the Mercedes driver told reporters in Florida. "So Miami, Zandvoort, Brazil, it's something I want to work on, but there are three tracks out of the 24 that are outliers, and Miami is definitely top of that list."
He doubled down minutes later. "Last year, Kimi was on pole for the sprint and I was P5. Today, he's pole and I'm P5," Russell said, referring to Andrea Kimi Antonelli. "It's not really a major cause for concern. It's just I know this is a real struggle for me. Low grip, really hot temperatures."
F1 history made the same admission six months ago through a different driver. Piastri lost his 2025 title across Austin and Mexico City, where Lando Norris took P2 and then victory while the Australian was nowhere. After Mexico, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella laid out the diagnosis publicly — and it reads almost identically to the Russell case.
"We reviewed with Oscar extensively from a data point of view, and I think we extracted some important information in terms of how the car needs to be driven in these special low grip conditions," Stella said. "You have to drive the car in a way that adapts to the fact that the car slides a lot and can slide and produce lap time. This is not necessarily the way in which Oscar feels naturally that he is producing lap time."
Piastri admitted it too late. "I've had to drive very differently the last couple of weekends, or I have not driven differently when I should have," the Australian said. "That has been a little bit strange to get my head around, because I've been driving the same as I have all year."
That is the pattern repeating with Russell. The Mercedes driver's natural style minimises slide and chases adhesion. At circuits where the surface forces a driver to live on the edge of grip, the style becomes a tax — and that tax compounds against a teammate who happens to be hyper-adaptable. Antonelli is to 2026 Russell what Norris was to 2025 Piastri.
The difference, in Russell's favour, is timing. He has flagged the problem before it has cost him a title rather than after, and he has already started to engineer around it. "The pace was really poor on my side. I've got some ideas," he said post-race in Miami. "I used the last sort of 20 laps to kind of test for myself, try out some quite drastic changes with my driving style and some of the differential and brake settings on my car, and it improved things."
Over team radio at the end of the race, Russell put it more bluntly to race engineer Marcus Dudley: "I changed some settings, diffs and brake magic and found a lot of lap time. So need to review that."
Canada — a circuit Russell won last year — is the next stop. Then comes the lower-grip stretch of the season. Zandvoort and Interlagos are both on the calendar. Both are on Russell's own bogey list. If the Miami testing breakthrough survives the trip to Montreal, the 2026 title is still his to lose. If it does not, the echo of Mexico 2025 will get loud quickly.
