Mercedes: Russell “Distraught” as Antonelli Celebrates

Race Weekend Wrap

Wolff: Russell was “distraught” as Antonelli partied

Here is the turning point nobody at Mercedes will forget. George Russell launched cleanly from the front row on Sunday, then his car simply didn’t pull. The energy deployment fell short on the long run to Turn 1, and he was swallowed by the pack.

It got worse. In the scramble he made contact with Isack Hadjar and picked up a 10-second penalty. He crossed the line sixth, congratulated his teammate, and left the circuit without doing his media duties. Mercedes was fined for the no-show.

Toto Wolff didn’t blame his driver. He told reporters the team had the pace and then let Russell down on the first straight, calling it a catastrophic moment for any racer. On Monday, Russell posted that this season had brought more bad days than good, and that 2026 was not meant to be his year. He promised to keep giving everything for the rest of this season and next.

Meanwhile, the other side of the garage is living a fairy tale. Antonelli finished third behind Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, and that was enough. He is champion at 20 years and 68 days, breaking Sebastian Vettel’s youngest-champion mark by about three years, with four rounds still to run. He is also Italy’s first world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.

Remember where he started. In his rookie year he went 10 races without scoring, cried after a bad weekend at Spa, and faced loud calls to be dropped. Wolff now says promoting him was a calculated risk rather than a real one, and admits two sponsors walked away over the decision. Nine Grand Prix wins later, the doubters have gone quiet.

Why it matters to you: if you follow F1 for the title fight, that fight is over, so the last four races become a different show. Watch Russell. A driver who just watched a 20-year-old teammate take the crown he wanted has every reason to come out swinging in Brazil. Think of it like losing the office promotion to the intern: you either sulk, or you spend the next month proving everyone wrong.

Car History

How two brothers and a tired Volvo conquered the 1965 Safari

Ascari’s last title for Italy came in 1953. That same year, a very different kind of motorsport was born in East Africa. A Nairobi motorist named Eric Cecil and his cousin Neil Vincent wanted a way to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Their idea was a long-distance road event looping through Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. It was called the Coronation Safari, and it would grow into one of the most feared rallies on earth.

Most people don’t know how scrappy the early years were. Records from 1953 list Alan Dix and a Volkswagen Beetle as the winner, though some historians argue the first event was scored by class and had no true outright winner. Either way, small, tough family cars ruled the dirt. The event became the East African Safari Rally in 1960 and joined the World Rally Championship in 1973.

Now picture the 1965 Safari. Joginder Singh, a Kenyan driver, lines up with his brother Jaswant beside him. They are privateers, not a factory team. Their Volvo PV544 is a hand-me-down: it was the works car Tom Trana had driven the year before, and it already had about 42,000 miles on it. Worse, it wears start number 1, which Safari crews considered bad luck.

The superstition didn’t hold. The Singh brothers beat the factory teams over brutal roads and won outright. Motor Sport magazine noted at the time that a private entry hadn’t won a major international rally in a long while. Joginder went on to win the Safari twice more, in 1974 and 1976.

Why does it still matter? The Safari is back on the WRC calendar, and Kenyan fans still pack the roadsides at Naivasha. Every time a local crew takes on the factory teams there, they are chasing the same dream the Singh brothers proved possible: a tired car, a brave crew, and a lot of nerve can still beat the budget.

Ferrari

Hamilton says a penalty cost Ferrari the win

Hamilton started on pole, but teammate Charles Leclerc went around the outside into Turn 4, both ran off track, and Leclerc came out ahead. The stewards handed Leclerc a five-second penalty, and Verstappen used the confusion to slip past. After a red flag for Valtteri Bottas’s heavy crash in the Cadillac, Hamilton attacked Verstappen at the restart, made contact, and lost out. He finished just 0.799 seconds behind.

Hamilton said the Leclerc penalty is basically what lost Ferrari the win, and called for serious talks behind the scenes at Maranello. That is a loaded phrase heading into the off-season.

Rookie Watch

Hirakawa scores on his F1 debut

Ryo Hirakawa only got Esteban Ocon’s Haas seat on Saturday. By Sunday night he had a point. Penalties shuffled the order: Oscar Piastri took 10 seconds for hitting Arvid Lindblad and fell from seventh to 15th, Franco Colapinto got 10 seconds and Pierre Gasly got 30 for ignoring yellow flags. Hirakawa climbed to 10th. Not bad for a driver who had barely unpacked.

Ford

The Ford Escape may return as an EV

Ford stopped building the Escape last December so its Louisville, Kentucky plant could be rebuilt for the new low-cost Universal EV platform. Now a forecaster says the name could come back on an all-electric crossover from that same plant, with production around the second quarter of 2029.

The first Universal EV product, the Fathom, arrives next year from $28,350 plus $1,595 delivery, using cheaper LFP batteries. Ford expects the platform to cut production costs by about 20%. Why it matters: the Escape lost buyers to the RAV4 and CR-V. A cheap electric version could be Ford’s way back into the most popular class in America.

China EVs

BYD tops 483,000 cars in October as the market cools

China’s car market is slowing, with the China Passenger Car Association expecting October retail sales to fall about 28% from a year ago. Yet BYD still delivered 483,125 passenger cars, up 10.6%. Geely Galaxy hit 153,385, Leapmotor passed 106,000, and XPeng topped 50,000 for the first time. Xiaomi also cleared 50,000.

The winners are mostly cars under about 200,000 yuan. For buyers in Kenya and across Africa, where Chinese EVs are arriving fast, that price fight is the one to watch.

Hybrids

Honda’s hybrids boom while the Prologue EV bows out

Honda’s hybrid surge keeps rolling. A new report says hybrids made up 54% of CR-V sales in July, while sales of the Prologue electric SUV fell about 75% that month, and the Prologue will be dropped after the 2026 model year. Honda’s spending plan through early 2029 puts far more money into gas and hybrid cars than into EVs. For fans of the hybrid CR-V, popular on Nairobi roads too, that’s good news.

SEMA Show

Nissan brings a twin-turbo Frontier and a roofless Armada to SEMA

SEMA opens in Las Vegas tomorrow, and Nissan has shown its hand early. The Frontier RONIN gets a twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V6, a track 12 inches wider and 35-inch tires. The Pathfinder XE-V6 is a 40th-birthday tribute to the boxy first-generation model. The wildest, the Armada Jungle Patrol, loses its roof and gains a roll cage, inward-facing seats and 37-inch tires.

None are for sale, but Nissan says the builds shape future accessories, and it teased that an all-new Xterra is coming.