George Russell calls for Mercedes F1 meeting after "worst" race of 2025

George Russell believes Mercedes’ recent struggles in Formula 1 could be down to the changes the team made in the wake of the clampdown on front wing flexing in Barcelona.

Russell endured another tough weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, qualifying a distant sixth on Saturday before making little progress in the race to finish fifth, more than half a minute down on race winner Oscar Piastri.

Rookie teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli had an even more miserable outing as he wound up outside the points in 16th place after qualifying on the second-last row of the grid.

These results prompted Russell to describe Mercedes’ performance at Spa-Francorchamps as its “worst” of the season, as he called for a meeting to discuss the team’s sudden drop in speed.

“The performance, we need to really understand what is going on and why we've taken such a step backwards because from these conditions today you would argue are ideal for us in our car, and once again it's been the worst performance of the season,” he told the media including Crash.net.

“So yeah, we're gonna have a big sit down this week and try and figure it out.”

George Russell hints at rule-change as source of Mercedes problem

The FIA introduced more stringent front wing flexing tests from the Spanish Grand Prix at the start of June to reduce the reliance on aero elasticity in F1.

All teams had to bring new front wings in Barcelona to ensure they were compliant with the technical directive, having been informed of the change as early as January this year.

Since the front wing determines how the air flows to the rest of the car, it also has a knock-on effect on the overall aerodynamic balance and performance.

Russell feels the changes Mercedes made in the wake of the technical directive could be responsible for its lack of results in recent races.

“Obviously, we had to change the front wing in Barcelona,” he explained. We then went in a slightly different direction afterwards to tackle the issue of the change of front wing and clearly since that point we've taken a big step backwards, so, it could be as simple as reverting back to something that we had earlier in the season.  

“Of course you can do that with the front wing, but in terms of the rest of the setup. But I don't know, it seems quite strange how we've gone so far backwards.”

Although Russell did win the Canadian Grand Prix just a fortnight after the Barcelona directive, with Antonelli joining him on the podium in third, that result increasingly looks like an outlier now.

Russell started the season with four podiums in the first six races, but Canada marks the only time he or Antonelli had finished inside the top three in the last seven races.

The Briton explained that the changes have compromised the rear stability of the W16, making the car much  harder to drive.

“Definitely the car isn't feeling as nice to drive at the moment as it once did,” he said.

“[It is] lacking rear stability, whereas at the start of the year it was much better.

“Kimi and I are collectively making more mistakes because the car is more challenging to drive.

“We need to sit down as a team. As I say, it may be as simple as reversing back on some of the changes we've made, but in F1 it's never that simple.”