MEXICO CITY — The celebrations will run long and hard in the Mercedes camp after the crowning of 20-year-old Kimi Antonelli as the youngest ever world champion, but there is one man for whom the Italian’s joy will be tinged with regret.

After all, this season was supposed to be all about George Russell.

After dominating early season testing, Russell went into the campaign as universal favourite to take the title, the heir to Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes ready to assume his place in the pantheon.

That status was reinforced by an imposing victory in the opening race in Australia. Since then, however, that early optimism has turned to ashes as he has had to watch the young pretender steal in and claim his crown.

Russell needed to win in Mexico to have any hope of stalling the young Italian but a faltering sixth place, which included a 10-second penalty for bumping Isack Hadjar, was nowhere near good enough.

But it summed up a disappointing season of mistakes and bad luck.

“I’ve probably learned more about myself this year than I would have liked to, in all honesty,” the Englishman said before the race in Mexico.

“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.”

Russell has always been candid and he will undoubtedly think back to a perfect opening weekend in Melbourne and wonder how it all went so badly wrong.

He dominated qualifying, taking pole position with three-tenths of a second in hand over Antonelli, and followed up by winning the race with a three-second gap to his teammate with the rest flailing in his wake.