George Russell flags 'serious issue' at Mercedes

George Russell said Mercedes has ruled out his driving style as the cause of his recurring straight-line speed loss after another troubled qualifying session at Spa left him 0.508s slower than pole-sitting team-mate Kimi Antonelli.

Russell qualified fourth for the Belgian Grand Prix but said the gap did not reflect the quality of his lap through the corners. Instead, he pointed to a deficit on the straights that Mercedes still cannot explain, describing it as a problem that has now carried over from previous race weekends.

Speaking after qualifying, Mercedes driver George Russell said the team had already gone through and discarded multiple theories. "We thought we found the problem. We thought it was simply the brakes. It wasn't the brakes," he said. "Then, we thought it was my driving style with the throttle and I convinced myself that it was something in me with the driving style." Russell said Mercedes is now "very confident it's not the driving style and that there's a serious issue at play here."

He said the scale of the loss was clear in the data all weekend. "Yesterday I was losing eight tenths in the straights. Today, I'm losing four tenths," Russell said. "Every lap I do, when I see I'm down anywhere from two to six tenths on the straights, it's pretty infuriating."

That frustration has shaped Mercedes' entire weekend on his side of the garage. Russell said his focus for the previous 36 hours had been on finding the source of the straight-line problem rather than chasing setup or tyre gains. Even on his final lap, he said, the issue changed again. "For some reason, I lost another tenth and a half to myself just on the straight," he said. "You're watching on your steering wheel, just losing speed, when you're full gas on the straight. You feel powerless."

Russell insisted the underlying pace of the lap was strong enough to fight at the front. He said he was pleased with his performance in the corners and believed that part of the lap looked normal for a pole battle. "There are a lot of corners I was faster," he said. "The corners look like a normal fight you'd have for a pole. The straights is not."

That left him feeling he could not properly measure himself against Antonelli. Russell said it was hard to accept being half a second down at the line when so much of the deficit was coming on full throttle, adding that if the problem continues he cannot fight his team-mate "in a fair battle."

Mercedes still does not have a clear answer. Russell said he does not believe the power unit is the root cause, but admitted the team is still chasing an explanation for what is slowing his car on the straights. "We don't know what's going on," he said. "I don't know what the solution is, but I'm praying ahead of Budapest, we'll find it."