The director of the Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, has confirmed that the team is investigating a maximum speed problem that affected George Russell during the qualifying session of the Formula 1 British Grand Prix.
Russell was nearly four-tenths behind his teammate, Kimi Antonelli, at Silverstone, losing most of the time on the Hangar Straight, where Antonelli was approximately 6 km/h faster. Even though both drivers applied similar energy recovery techniques during the Maggotts-Becketts section, the telemetry did not show significant differences.
The speed deficit was also evident during the sprint race qualifying, albeit to a lesser extent, and in the race, the difference was about 3 to 4 km/h. Wolff commented that the team needs to delve into this issue, as no anomalies were identified at the power unit level.
“He had a straight-line speed problem throughout the weekend. We didn’t find anything that indicated an issue with the engine. It must be some kind of mechanical situation, whether a ‘tow’ or another factor. The data confirms he was down, but it’s hard to identify,” Wolff said.
After qualifying, Russell expressed his frustration over the problem: “We’ve had difficulties with straight-line speed all weekend. We don’t know why. We lost 6 km/h in the last sector and 3 km/h in the middle sector. It’s hard to compete with that.”.
In the race, Russell managed to recover from an additional stop due to a slow puncture, finishing second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Despite the success of finishing on the podium, Russell acknowledged that his performance needs to improve in order to fight for the title, now 25 points behind Antonelli.
“I felt good, but the lap times weren’t fast. There are factors outside my control that have influenced. If I want to compete for the championship, I have to improve. We need to optimize everything as the fight against Ferrari is intense,” he added.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_73b6c7bb77f72f7eff20cef3a4cf1d598c1d8478