拉塞尔:今年失冠不会击垮我
拉塞尔表示,本赛季未能夺得个人首个F1世界冠军不会定义他的职业生涯,也不会击垮他。队友安东内利在进入墨西哥大奖赛时已接近成为F1世界冠军。
拉塞尔:今年失冠不会击垮我
随着梅赛德斯队友安东内利在进入墨西哥大奖赛时接近成为F1世界冠军,拉塞尔展现出不服输的态度
拉塞尔表示,本赛季未能夺得个人首个F1世界冠军不会定义他的职业生涯,也不会击垮他。
这位英国车手进入本赛季时是车手世界冠军的明显热门;他职业生涯初期驾驶处于队尾的威廉姆斯赛车时表现出色,之后在梅赛德斯难以重现地效时代此前统治力的情况下升入该队,并继续引人注目。
但那种偏袒并未成为现实,银箭队友基米·安东内利有望在本周末的墨西哥城大奖赛上成为F1最年轻的世界冠军——拉塞尔必须赢下这场比赛,才有任何希望推迟那不可避免的结局。
尽管糟糕的可靠性在一定程度上阻碍了拉塞尔对这位意大利人发起真正的冠军挑战,但他自己的表现有时也未能达到安东内利所设定的水准。
安东内利在第二个赛季已斩获九场分站胜利,而拉塞尔尽管在赛季揭幕的澳大利亚大奖赛上以统治性方式夺冠,却只赢了三场;不过他在罗德里格斯兄弟赛道表示,前队友刘易斯·汉密尔顿和阿斯顿·马丁的费尔南多·阿隆索就是证明——本赛季未能拿下车手总冠军并不意味着梦想就此终结。
“说实话,今年我对自己有了更多了解,可能比我原本想要的还要多,”拉塞尔承认道。
在体育运动中,你所经历的高潮和低谷是巨大的,那是因为我们都非常在乎自己所做的事情。
但我提醒自己,我才28岁。我看到刘易斯·汉密尔顿在41岁、费尔南多·阿隆索在44岁仍然竞争得非常出色。你知道,刘易斯的大部分冠军都是在30多岁时赢得的,而今年绝对不会定义我整个职业生涯。它不会击垮我。如果说有什么影响,那只会让我更强大。
我一直相当为自己的韧性感到自豪,以及我如何从非常艰难的时刻中反弹回来,而实际上,在本赛季我最低谷的时刻,我总体上反弹得非常非常强劲——然后在一场好比赛之后我又经历了一场糟糕的比赛。
所以也许这也是我需要分析的事情,因为我总是在最糟糕的比赛之后表现最好,也许这只是巧合。也许其中有些道理,但我人生中参加赛车的年份比不参赛的年份更多,而且我成功的年份相对失败而言也更多。
“而且我认为任何运动员,无论多么伟大,都不可能在自己职业生涯的每一年都保持最高水平。不幸的是,对我来说,今年恰好是在我最需要的时候到来了。但这绝不是我的旅程的终点。”
“我体内还有12到15年的好时光。”
虽然冠军实际上可能已掌握在安东内利手中,但拉塞尔仍决心利用本赛季最后几场比赛来克服任何问题,以高昂姿态结束赛季,为2027年的冲击做好准备。
当被问及前梅赛德斯车手尼科·罗斯伯格在2015年赢得最后三场比赛,随后在下一个赛季成为冠军时,拉塞尔回答说:“我认为努力保持一定的稳定性对我来说绝对很重要。”
“几场比赛之前(阿塞拜疆),我们以零点八秒的优势拿到杆位并赢下比赛,然后上周我以第八名完赛。我职业生涯中从未有过表现波动如此之大的赛季,我知道这种能力还在,因为如果你所谓的‘丢了手感’,是不可能在巴库交出那样的表现的。
只是我们很难保持高命中率。我们不知道原因何在,以前也从未遇到过。我个人职业生涯中从未有过这种情况,我想这大概是我在最后这几场比赛中的首要任务。”
英文原文
George Russell on F1 title loss: 'This year won't break me'
Russell is in a defiant mood as Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli enters the Mexico GP on the verge of becoming F1 champion
George Russell has insisted his career will 'not be defined' and he 'won't be broken' by failing to secure a maiden Formula 1 world title this season.
The British driver entered the campaign as clear favourite for the drivers' championship having impressed in a back-of-the-grid Williams to begin his career, before continuing to catch the eye when stepping up to Mercedes as the team struggled to replicate previous dominance during the ground-effect era.
But that favouritism hasn't become reality, with Silver Arrows team-mate Kimi Antonelli on the verge of becoming F1's youngest champion at this weekend's Mexico City Grand Prix - a race Russell has to win to have any hope of delaying the inevitable.
And while poor reliability has played its part in stopping Russell from putting down a genuine title challenge to the Italian, his own performances have sometimes failed to live up to the mark Antonelli has set.
While Antonelli has picked up nine race wins in his second year, Russell has managed only three despite winning in dominant fashion at the season-opening Australian GP but speaking at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, he pointed to former team-mate Lewis Hamilton and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso as proof that the failure to take the drivers' crown this term doesn't mean the dream is over.
"I've probably learned more about myself this year than I would have liked to, in all honesty," Russell conceded.
"The highs and lows you go through in sport are immense and that's because we all care so much for what we're doing.
"But I remind myself, I'm 28 years old. I see Lewis [Hamilton] still competing extremely well at 41 and Fernando [Alonso] at 44. You know, Lewis won the majority of his titles in his 30s and this year is absolutely not going to define my career as a whole. It's not going to break me. If anything, it's going to make me stronger.
"I've been pretty proud of my resilience and how I've bounced back from very tough moments and actually, through my lowest points of this season, I've generally bounced back really, really strong - and then I had another bad race after the good one.
"So maybe it's something I need to analyse as well, because I always perform best after my worst races, maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe there's something in it, but I've been racing more years of my life than I haven't and I've had more successful years than relative failures.
"And I don't think any athlete, no matter how great, has every single year of their career performing at their highest level. Unfortunately, this year for me has come at maybe the time when I needed it most. But it's by no means the end of my journey.
"I've still got a good 12 to 15 years left in me."
While the championship may effectively be in Antonelli's hands, Russell is still determined to use the final races of the current campaign to overcome any issues and end the season on a high, ready for a 2027 assault.
Put to him that former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg won the final three races in 2015 before going on to become champion the following season, Russell replied: "I think it is definitely important for me to try and gain some consistency.
"A couple of races ago [Azerbaijan], we were on pole by eight tenths and won the race, and then last week I finished in P8. I've never had a season like this in my career where the performance has fluctuated so much and I know it's in there, because you can't deliver performances like that in Baku if you've so-called lost it.
"It's just that we're struggling to have a high hit rate. We don't know why that is, and we've never had it. I've never had it personally before in my career, and I guess that's probably the priority for me in these last few races."
Motorsport.com ·
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