George Russell won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix by just 0.1 seconds over Max Verstappen, while teammate Kimi Antonelli finished fifth — a result that shrank his championship lead to 66 points with eight rounds left.

For the 20-year-old Italian, Baku was a weekend of setbacks: lost practice time to a technical issue, a Q1 crash, and a grid slot of 16th. By his own admission, confidence was the real problem. ‘I was driving more like my grandma, so it wasn’t the usual Kimi,’ he said, acknowledging he simply didn’t have the confidence to push at full effort.

Still, Antonelli isn’t sounding rattled about the title fight with Russell. ‘I’ll make sure next week I re-establish the order and just make sure that I will be back at my usual level,’ he vowed, looking ahead to the Bahrain Grand Prix, held this year at Malaysia’s Sepang circuit, where he expects to feel mentally sharper.

Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord downplayed any psychological fallout from Russell’s dominant weekend, stressing that the team’s strength lies precisely in having two drivers capable of winning races.

Source: Sky Sports F1 (https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/13592946/kimi-antonelli-vows-to-re-establish-the-order-over-george-russell-at-bahrain-gp-in-malaysia-after-losing-out-in-azerbaijan)