Mercedes reveal issue that disadvantaged George Russell’s F1 weekend at British GP

Mercedes has revealed that George Russell suffered from a straightline speed issue with his Formula 1 car throughout the British Grand Prix weekend. 

After qualifying fourth for Sunday’s British Grand Prix and 0.370 seconds off Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s pole position lap, Russell claimed he was losing up to 0.3s on the straights compared to his team-mate. 

Russell said he had also struggled with the problem during sprint qualifying, where he ended up fifth-fastest. 

"All weekend we've been losing lots of time in the straights. In SQ3 it was almost three tenths I lost in the straights,” the Briton explained after qualifying on Saturday. 

"Again, qualifying, you're looking at speed traps and it's 3km/h down in the middle sector, 6km/h down in the last sector compared to my teammate and compared to the [Mercedes-powered] McLaren cars.

"The team are working super hard to understand why that is. We thought we found the problem this morning and we thought the brakes were locking on but we're not convinced that's the issue.

"It just compounds everything when you get into a session knowing you're at a bit of a disadvantage.”

Russell went on to claim second place in Sunday’s grand prix after Antonelli suffered more woes, and Lewis Hamilton conceded track position when he pitted under a late safety car. 

“It's been a very challenging weekend,” Russell said after the race. “Things within my control not good enough, things outside of my control haven't been good enough, which has all resulted in poor pace.” 

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff confirmed Russell had a problem on his W17 that hampered him throughout the weekend. However, according to Wolff, the straightline speed issue did not appear during the race itself. 

“He had all weekend a straight-line issue. We couldn't see anything on engine power,” Wolff told media including Crash.net. 

"It must have been down to some kind of mechanical situation, whether that was tow, or something else. But definitely the data confirmed that he was down, but very difficult to identify. 

"That was much better in the race. We didn't see that anymore. But nevertheless, something we need to understand.” 

The result sees Russell reduce his deficit to championship leader Antonelli to 25 points, but he insisted he is not thinking about the title fight. 

“I'm not even thinking about it, to be honest, because I've got my own things I need to deal with and improve upon on my own side,” he said. 

“I left Monaco three races ago 68 points behind and I leave here 25 points behind. So yeah, I would take it, but it won't continue like that forever unless the results, the performance, gets better.”