George Russell walked past the microphones in Mexico City. He did not stop at the broadcasters, did not stop at the written press, and left the circuit while Kimi Antonelli was being handed the 2026 world championship a few metres away. On Monday the FIA stewards decided the exit was worth €5,000 to Mercedes.

Toto Wolff is not pushing back on his driver. The Mercedes team principal found Russell on the FIA scales after the race and let him go.

“I saw George after the race on the FIA scales, and obviously he’s distraught about the situation,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1. For a racing driver, he added, it was a catastrophic moment.

Russell started second on the grid and ran out of the race almost before it began. An energy deployment problem on the opening straight shuffled him backwards, and a first-lap clash with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar at Turn 6 brought a 10-second penalty. He finished sixth and dropped from second to fourth in the drivers’ standings on the night his team-mate was crowned.

Read also: Virgil van Dijk takes aim at VAR after Arsenal defeat: ‘We have 50 cameras’

Mercedes blames the opening straight

Wolff accepted the technical failure as a Mercedes mistake, not a Russell one. He told Sky Sports the race had been there for Russell to win, that the pace had been in the car, and that the team had let him down on the first straight.

According to Wolff, Russell went to find Antonelli before leaving, which the Austrian framed as a show of sportsmanship and the harder of the two things to do that evening.

“Him not doing the media work, or leaving the track, is absolutely understandable. Him staying would have actually surprised me,” Wolff said.

Stewards impose €5,000 penalty

Formula 1’s post-race media pen is mandatory for every driver who does not take part in the top-three press conference. A team can only excuse a driver with explicit FIA approval, and Mercedes did not request one.

Read also: Yamaha refuses to race in Qatar: There is a war

The stewards’ verdict was short.

“The stewards heard from the team representative that the driver had left the circuit without attending the post race media commitments,” the document read, before imposing “a penalty of €5,000” on the team, according to the ruling reported by PlanetF1.

Antonelli youngest ever champion

Antonelli’s third-place finish at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez wrapped up the title at 20 years and 68 days, making him the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history and the first Italian driver to win the championship since Alberto Ascari in 1953. Max Verstappen took the race win for Red Bull.

The São Paulo Grand Prix is next on the calendar.

Read also: Russia cleared for World Championship return – Germany threatens to give up hosting

Read also: Ronaldo misses Al-Nassr trip just days after hat-trick – Postecoglou explains: ‘I decided…’