Another black Saturday for George Russell
For an Andrea Kimi Antonelli who celebrates pole position and gains increasing confidence and even status within the Mercedes box, there is a George Russell who tastes bitterness. Even at the end of the qualifying for the 2026 Belgian GP at Spa, a track where the Englishman has gone very fast in the past – even winning the edition two years ago, only to be disqualified for the car being just under the weight limit – there was no contest, except in the (irrelevant) Q1. And while Antonelli flew at the front inflicting heavy gaps on everyone, the more experienced and on paper more decorated teammate took more than half a second gap.
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Is there really a problem with Mercedes?
Half a second that in fact, looking at the telemetry data, emerges entirely in the third sector, from Stavelot to the Bus Stop, that is in a part of the track where drivers go full throttle. So much so that it is George Russell himself, at the end of qualifying, who continues to insist on the hypothesis that yes, there must be something wrong with his car. “We didn’t have top speed all weekend – he explains to Sky microphones after the end of Q3 – and the same thing that happened at Silverstone also happened here. In the end, you have to admit that there is a real problem.” It is perhaps a response to Toto Wolff, who after the end of the British GP had scolded him via radio on world television, with Russell replying sharply that the car was absolutely fine.
“We thought maybe it was something related to the brakes – adds the English driver – and we changed them, but it wasn’t that. We also thought about the floor, we changed it and nothing, just as we thought about other things. We lost two tenths on the straight at Silverstone and thought it was due to driving style, but it wasn’t because of the driving. Now in qualifying I lost four tenths just on the straight. And on some laps it was even worse. But yes, the team is working very hard to understand what is happening.”
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“Second place in the corner”
The 28-year-old then further clarified the concept to the microphones of the French pay-tv Canal+, suggesting that without these difficulties on the straight he would have been further up the grid (although probably not at the level of teammate Antonelli): “In short, we have separate problems. In the last two race weekends I didn’t have speed on the straight and, at Silverstone, we thought we understood the reason. But then we came here, made those changes and in Q3 we lost four tenths and maybe even a bit more. It’s a shame because the lap seemed good to me, but the problems we are facing are not constant.” “I was satisfied, in the corner I had gone at least fast enough to do second fastest time,” concluded George Russell.
