Russell: It was an "underwhelming weekend" for Mercedes
Having finished the Spa-Francorchamps race in a lonely fifth place, Mercedes driver George Russell stated that the Brackley-based outfit "have some ideas" for their sudden pace loss compared to the opening stages of the season.
Mercedes endured a tough weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix. George Russell endured an early exit in sprint qualifying, and was unable to make any real progress, ending the 100km dash pointless.
The Briton then went on to qualify in a distant sixth place on Saturday before making little progress in the race to finish fifth, more than half a minute down on race winner Oscar Piastri.
His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli suffered a shock SQ1/Q1 exit in the sprint and the standard qualifying session.
Although the Italian looked fairly competitive on damp surface, he was unable to make huge progress, and a tactical move to pit for a second time backfired, and saw Antonelli wound up outside the points in 16th.
Speaking of his disappointing weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, Russell added that Mercedes "have some ideas" for their sudden pace loss compared to the opening stages of the season.
"P5 was the maximum we could have achieved today. Our pace was not strong compared to our usual competitors and that left us in a lonely race to P5. It is frustrating to be in that position but that was the reality of our weekend.
"It has been an underwhelming weekend for us, so we need to quickly analyse what’s happened here in Spa. We have some on ideas as to where we have lost out to our rivals in recent races.
"We still have one more Grand Prix before the summer break to put things right and that will be our focus in Budapest next weekend," concluded Russell.
