Mercedes confirms initial George Russell findings after Belgian GP investigation
George Russell complained of a 'serious issue' in his Mercedes, on which the team has shed some light.
Mercedes deputy technical director, Simone Resta, confirmed there have been “deployment differences” between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix.
While the team’s initial theory centred on differences in driving style between the two drivers, once Russell addressed that at Spa, the issue lingered on his side of the garage.
Mercedes sheds further light on George Russell issue after Antonelli deficit
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Russell was furious as untelevised team radio confirmed he was heading along the Kemmel Straight on the first lap having run out of battery, with several cars looking to pass him.
As he sought to maintain his place, he braked late to take to the outside of Lewis Hamilton at Les Combes, but the former teammates made contact, leaving Russell beached in the gravel and Hamilton with a five-second penalty.
With Kimi Antonelli securing the win, Russell has fallen 50 points behind his current teammate in the Drivers’ standings, and admitted feeling “numb to disappointment” as a first-lap incident ended his race.
Adding after the race there is a “serious issue” the team is investigating on his side of the garage, Resta confirmed that, despite Russell adjusting his driving style, the differences between he and Antonelli persist.
Resta told Mercedes’ post-race debrief: “We’ve been having a lot of questions about the issues that George is facing with the deployment, and all that started in Silverstone, where we started to see some deployment difference between our two cars.
“We’ve been doing a lot of analysis, and we came to the conclusion that one of the major contributors was related to driving style, different driving style between the two cars.
“George studied that quite a lot and was able to change it and adapt going into Spa, but still, we can still see some difference of deployment between the two cars.
“We are working with a brand new set of regulations. We are just at the 10th race of these regulations, and we are still struggling to understand every single contributor.
“We are not the only one in this condition, because we can see that many teams are still learning and adapting to this new regulation, so we do our best to really bottom out what’s the main reason for this difference, and to be best prepared for Hungary.”
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Russell’s anger came down to him saying he was 35% below his expected battery level out of La Source, the opening hairpin at Spa, which then left him vulnerable to attack as the cars powered through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, all the way to the chicane of Les Combes.
There was an explanation for how that came about, too, which also affected Antonelli as he dropped behind Max Verstappen on the opening lap, before re-passing him.
“Essentially, we’ve been having a software issue with both our cars, which basically meant that we hit the harvesting limit at Turn 1,” Resta explained.
“For this situation, basically, we had a boost issue on both cars from Turn 1 [La Source] to basically Turn 5 [Les Combes], and this has affected both George and Kimi, and we have seen both of them losing ground after a good start.”
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