'You feel powerless' - George Russell searches for answers to Mercedes F1 problem

George Russell conceded his lack of pace at the Belgian Grand Prix is "infuriating", as the Mercedes driver is "powerless" to stop time bleeding away on the long flat-out sections at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Russell has been off the pace compared to Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli on a number of occasions this season, with team boss Toto Wolff instructing the Briton to "just drive" during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. 

While Russell took pole on that day, the situation was not repeated at Spa-Francorchamps, as he fell half a second shy of his pole-winning team-mate, with almost all of this time being lost on full throttle.

“It could be worse, could of been much better," assessed Russell. 

"Yesterday, I was losing eight-tenths in the straights; today, I'm losing four-tenths. It's a step in the right direction, but we saw this from Silverstone. We thought we’d found the problem. We thought it was simply the brakes. It wasn't the brakes. Then we thought it was my driving style with the throttle, and I convinced myself that it was something in me with the driving style. 

“Now, we're very confident it's not the driving style, and that there's a serious issue at play here. The team are working so hard to resolve it. But every lap I do, when I see I'm down anywhere from two-tenths to six-tenths in the straights, it's pretty infuriating.”

Despite this, Russell maintained that he was "very happy" with his effort and believes that, were it not for the problems in a straight line, he "would have been fighting for the front row". 

He added: "My whole focus across the last 36 hours has been on straight-line speed. It hasn't been focused on the setup, the tyres, or anything because we're all trying to solve what is going on.

“Even on my last lap, for some reason, I lost another tenth and a half to myself just on the straight. And you're watching your lap on your steering wheel just losing speed when you're full straight, when you're full gas on the straight. You feel powerless. 

“So we don't know what's going on. I don't think it's the power unit, to be honest, but there's something slowing us down in the straights. And as I said, the team are really, really on it now to try and solve it.”

Asked if he had considered pushing harder in the corners to compensate for the deficit, Russell said: “It's tempting, but my engineer's done a really good job of highlighting where I'm losing, and when I cross the line, you see a half a second down, it feels pretty rubbish.

“But when you realise more than 75 percent of that's coming from the power unit, you feel a bit better. As I said, I was pleased with my lap. When I look at the corners, there were a lot of corners where I was faster. There were definitely corners I need to improve, but the corners look like a normal fight you'd have for a pole. The straights are not. 

"I don't know what the solution is, but I’m praying that, ahead of Budapest week, we find it.”