Another ‘derby’ lost
Also at Spa-Francorchamps the home Mercedes derby between Andrea Kimi Antonelli and George Russell ended with a clear result in favor of the Italian, at least in qualifying: the World Championship leader took pole position, while Russell suffered a half-second gap from the twin car and will start tomorrow from the third position on the grid (his time was the fourth fastest, but he will benefit from Lando Norris’s grid penalty).
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Russell, for his part, continues to complain about an alleged loss of power in his engine on the straight, which would put him at a disadvantage compared to Antonelli and make the fight between the two uneven. However, the complaints of the English #63 were only partially accepted by Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, who spoke to the official F1 channel shortly after qualifying ended. The Austrian manager acknowledged that there was a power deficit on the straight to Russell’s disadvantage, but also explained that at least half of the gap was due to driving reasons.
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Wolff’s analysis
“George is clearly suffering from the lack of speed on the straight, which we cannot explain – Wolff commented – we literally turned over every stone [to understand]. Could it be the power unit? Because Kimi has a brand new one and that could make the difference. We will see on the next circuits, because they will require less energy and there the engine will not make a big difference. Then there are a few tenths that George has to find; many of these he has already found, but in some corners there are still a couple of tenths and a half [to find]. He has recovered well, but at the moment he is not in tune with the car and he hasn’t been in the last two weekends and it is probably not his fault. We just have to find the right balance,” Wolff concluded.
Read more Kimi flies, Russell insists: “I lost 4 tenths on the straight, we have to admit there is a problem”
