Russell facing 'new Bottas' status at Mercedes: 'It really looks like'

After comfortably winning the intra-team battle last year, Russell has seen the Italian driver's rapid rise overshadow him this season, despite being widely regarded as one of the favourites for the title. The standings now firmly favour Antonelli, who holds a lead worth almost three Grands Prix with more than half of the season already completed.

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, Steiner said the situation increasingly appears to resemble Bottas' time alongside Hamilton at Mercedes, although he stressed that Russell still has control over how his future develops. He suggested Bottas was ultimately willing to accept his position within the team, having remained at Mercedes for several years. Russell, however, may have to look elsewhere if he is unwilling to find himself in a similar role alongside Antonelli.

Ralf Schumacher believes Antonelli has now firmly established himself as Mercedes' number-one driver, with George Russell also beginning to recognise the situation.

Schumacher highlighted Antonelli's remarkable consistency, pointing to ten podium finishes from 12 races, with technical issues accounting for the only two occasions on which he failed to make the top three. Despite having won only once across the last six races, Schumacher feels the Italian continues to deliver consistently, avoiding mistakes and showing no signs that maintaining such a high level of performance is becoming an issue.

In Schumacher's view, Antonelli is now clearly outperforming Russell and still has significant room for improvement given his relative lack of experience. That, he believes, makes the Italian the clear number one within Mercedes. He also suggested Russell has already understood the changing hierarchy within the team. He believes the Briton would benefit from accepting the situation, approaching each race individually and continuing to focus on beating Antonelli on track, while adopting a more measured approach to how he deals with the situation internally.