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George Russell admitted he decided to "get out" of the circuit as quickly as possibly after team-mate Kimi Antonelli confirmed his championship success. The Italian got over the line in Mexico City last Sunday, sealing the title having out-performed Russell for much of the season. Mercedes have been the best team in Formula One this season, as was predicted before the campaign began, but Russell has failed to live up to the pre-season billing.
The pain became too much to bear for the Brit in Mexico City. He summoned the strength to meet Antonelli in parc ferme and offer a hug and a handshake to his team-mate and his family members, but soon beat a hasty retreat from the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Russell skipped his media duties, prompting a fine for his Mercedes team, and was also not seen in the pit lane as Mercedes staff posed for photographs and sprayed champagne with Antonelli to celebrate his status as world champion.
Speaking publicly for the first time since that weekend, in Sao Paulo ahead of Sunday's race in Brazil, Russell said: "I was just... in racing you always pick yourself back up and for me the best way to pick myself back up was getting out of there.
"It was as simple as that really. I was just very upset with missing out on the chance of a good result because the championship for me was already over but it was just... I just couldn't believe how things had panned out again. In that moment, yeah, I just wanted to get out of there.
"I think I'm 99 percent of the time a true professional and I try not to spit my dummy out but sometimes missing out on doing the press – okay, it's not ideal but not the end of the world. Moments like that you don't really want to deal with it."
Russell's mood was made worse by the fact he had a dreaful race of his own. He qualified second, but suffered a loss of power on the opening lap and dropped several places. He also copped a 10-second time penalty for tagging Isack Hadjar and sending the Red Bull into a spin. He eventually finished sixth.
Russell, the heavy pre-season title favourite, has secured three victories to Antonelli's nine and dropped from second to fourth in the standings after last weekend – now just five clear of Charles Leclerc in fifth. He said he has reviewed the season and is committed to working with his team to discover why so many of his races have been compromised by difficulties.
"These issues constantly keep popping up but unfortunately this always seems like it's on my side of the garage," he added. "We concluded we've only had six races from the 20 where we've had a clean weekend. So to think 14 of those weekends have had issues is unbelievable.
"We need to look to understand why that is, if there's something we are overlooking or if it's just pure misfortune. At the moment it does seem like it's more misfortune than anything. In a normal season you might have two weekends or three weekends where there are issues, we've had three quarters of this season and that has been incredibly unfortunate.
"It wasn't meant to be this season but you also need to look at yourself in the mirror and think, 'What could I have done better?Is all of the misfortune truly misfortune? Or is it actually things in our control that could have been better?'. So you need to just have a deep, deep look in the mirror and pick yourself up again and go from there."
Big moments. Packed grandstands. A championship battle that’s heating up.
When the Formula 1 season delivers like this, watching from home just isn’t the same as being there when the lights go out.
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