Russell eager to find out why Mercedes "are struggling here in Spa this weekend"

Assessing his day at Spa-Francorchamps, Mercedes driver George Russell was left to lament his car's performance after failing to challenge anything more than a sixth place on the grid for tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix.

In Saturday's sprint race, George Russell started from P13 on the grid, whilst his team-mate Kimi Antonelli lined up in P19 after both drivers were hampered in Sprint Qualifying on Friday.

In a quiet race, Russell made up one position to come home P12 with Antonelli advancing two positions to P17, leaving Mercedes with no points to collect.

Qualifying proved a tricky affair too with the car struggling for the pace needed to fight for the front two rows of the grid. In Q1, both drivers improved on their final efforts but Antonelli was knocked out in P18.

The four-time Grand Prix winner meanwhile progressed to Q3 but could only manage P6 on his last run.

Speaking of his challenging day, Russell said: "Today was a better day than Friday in terms of the result but, if you take out yesterday, then this was one of our worst Qualifying performances of the year.

"We are struggling here in Spa this weekend and we are working hard to understand why. We were potentially slightly light on rear wing level, given we were fastest in sectors one and three, but that is really just a compromise of where you gain lap time across the circuit.

Russell continued: "Starting P6 tomorrow still gives us a chance of fighting for decent points for tomorrow. We set the car up today so we could maximise Qualifying, so we will have to see what the weather does tomorrow.

"If it does rain, we may be slightly compromised but I’d much rather be starting in P6 with that than outside of the top 10. Let’s see what happens on Sunday," noted Russell.