russell's title bid ran out of battery at spa
george russell reached the top of eau rouge with zero percent battery, hamilton did the rest, and a 25-point gap to antonelli became 50.
a week ago this championship was getting interesting. kimi antonelli left monaco 68 points clear of george russell, then scored nothing in two of the next three grands prix, and by the time F1 arrived at spa the gap was 25. it took russell about half a lap to undo all of that work.
he started third and, by his own account, did everything right. a good start and a good first corner had him tucked in behind max verstappen. then his mercedes didn’t recharge. russell said he reached the top of eau rouge with zero percent on the battery, which on the kemmel straight makes you a very expensive chicane. charles leclerc went by, lewis hamilton drew alongside, had a snap of oversteer at les combes and hit the side of the mercedes. russell went into the gravel and his race was over before lap 2.
the stewards gave hamilton five seconds. he served it at his pit stop and still finished P4, with 12 points. russell got nothing. this is the same FIA that gave hamilton ten seconds in mexico last year for cutting a corner. cut a corner, ten seconds. take a title contender out of the race, five. i stopped looking for the logic a while ago.
to be fair to hamilton, russell himself called it a racing incident and said he didn’t do anything reckless (while adding that hamilton was more to blame, which, yes). the people he was really angry at were in his own garage. “quite frankly, it was dangerous” was his verdict on the battery, and he’s right. a car with no deployment on the fastest part of the lap, in the middle of the pack, on lap 1? the scariest thing at spa in 2026 is a flat battery.
meanwhile antonelli had the kind of sunday that wins titles. verstappen jumped him into eau rouge at the start, and he had the lead back by les combes. a virtual safety car gave leclerc a cheap pit stop and first place, so antonelli chased the ferrari down and passed it on lap 34. sixth win of the year, first since monaco, by 1.9 seconds. he is 19, by the way. he doesn’t turn 20 until next month.
now the maths. antonelli has 204 points, hamilton 159, russell 154. the 25-point gap is 50, and russell is now behind the driver who hit him. there’s more than half a season left, so nobody is engraving anything yet. but russell needed two bad weekends from antonelli to get close, and one bad battery put him further back than hamilton.
hungary is on sunday. (the verstappen podium watch also continues: P2 in austria, P3 at spa, and he’s still only seventh in the standings.) my prediction: russell wins out of pure spite, and mercedes spends the whole weekend staring at his battery. see you after the race.