Miami Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli has risen through the ranks in spectacular fashion this season.

For Russell, this could not be an easy time in his career. Mercedes defends itself, has waited eight years for this moment – the best car, with Mercedes.

Last year, he was comfortably the better driver of the two; Only rarely did Antonelli get the better of him. So the pre-season championship has earned its popularity rating.

The 28-year-old Briton lived up to that point when he won the first race of the season in Australia from pole position, but things have fallen for him since then.

A technical problem definitely stole the pole in China and gave it to Antonelli, who turned it into a maiden victory. A safety car intervened to hand victory in Japan to Antonelli, without whom McLaren’s Oscar Piastre or Russell would probably have won.

But there was no doubt about Miami’s victory. Antonelli put it on the pole. Russell was fifth on the grid behind improved cars from the Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari teams.

Antonelli made his sixth consecutive bad start and lost ground. But he stayed calm, fought back, and grabbed the win from McLaren’s Lando Norris during a pit stop.

Norris initially thought that McLaren had made a mistake by allowing the Mercedes to pit first, and the rain did not want to leave too early.

But McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said the team still had the margin of staying ahead of Antonelli when they stopped three laps behind him, but a series of events conspired against them.

First, there was the moment when Stella was first met by Antonelli from the pit after he stopped. That put the tires at risk of overheating, which had to be dealt with later, but still ensured it was within McLaren’s impressive range.

Norris then made two mistakes on the lap and was slowly stopped. Put it all together and it was enough to put Antonelli right on Norris’ tail as the McLaren came out of the pits. Mercedes quickly passed and kept Antonelli Norris at bay for the rest of the race.

Russell is keeping things in perspective, realizing there are still 18 runs to go, and a lot can happen.

“Obviously he’s in a really good place right now and the motivation is with him,” Russell said. But having enough experience in the championships that I’ve won and how fast it changes throughout the year and looking at last year’s championship, to be honest, I didn’t even think about it.

“I just wanted to get back to the top of the podium. The first three races I had the performance to do that, but this weekend I didn’t quite have the performance to do that.

“So I could be standing here with three very different results in previous races, and this one only once, but obviously things were different in Japan and China, but that’s Formula 1 sometimes.”

“The speed was really weak on my side,” admitted Russell, and he never got used to the Miami circuit with its low grip surfaces and slow corners.

But Hill said: “You can’t get that, you can’t have a track where it doesn’t go. You have to be good at everything. George now has to regroup, see where he is and what the new paradigm is.”