George Russell said a serious speed problem in his Mercedes left him unable to fight Kimi Antonelli at the Belgian Grand Prix, after qualifying 0.508 seconds slower at Spa-Francorchamps. He said the loss was coming on the straights, where he felt “powerless” as Mercedes kept working on the car.
Russell said more than 75% of his qualifying deficit came from the power-unit, adding: “When I cross the line, you see you're half a second down, it feels pretty rubbish.” He also said he was losing “anywhere from 0.2-0.6secs in the straights” and another 0.15secs on his last lap.
George Russell at Spa-Francorchamps
Russell qualified fourth and will start third because of a 10-place grid penalty for Lando Norris. He said he heads into the race 25 points behind Kimi Antonelli, who took his sixth pole position in 10 races.
He also said the straights were not usually part of the normal pole fight at Spa-Francorchamps. That made the deficit harder to read from inside the car, because the problem kept showing up at full throttle rather than in the places where Mercedes had first pointed to his driving.
Andrew Shovlin and Mercedes
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said Russell continued to suffer from poor deployment into the final chicane, which cost him a grid position. Russell later pushed back on the earlier explanation, saying: “I don't think it's the power unit, to be honest.”
He added: “There's a serious issue at play here and the team are working so hard to resolve it.” He then drew the line between the two Mercedes drivers: “Battling against Kimi is very tough in a fair fight. When we are in this situation, it's impossible.”
The race now turns on whether Mercedes can settle the unexplained straight-line discrepancy on Russell’s car before the Belgian Grand Prix unfolds. Until that happens, his pace loss stays fixed at the part of the lap where a driver has the least room to recover it.
