George Russell felt he got the maximum in F1 Belgian GP, as he noted about performance dip due to front wing TD where Andrew Shovlin adds his bit.
Having been solid last year, Mercedes were nowhere in F1 Belgian GP this year. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was knocked out in SQ1, followed by Russell in SQ2. They fared no better in the sprint race. The Italian’s troubles continued after a Q1 knockout, but the Brit managed to eke out a Top 6 result.
Antonelli noted about lack of confidence in the car which is pulling him down. The grand prix was slightly better for the Italian but after qualifying so far down, he couldn’t do much. Teammate Russell fared slightly better after passing Alexander Albon early on, but had nothing more in the tank.
It was a salvage job in fifth. “Maximum in terms of the finishing result, very underwhelming in terms of the performance,” said Russell to media. “We need to really understand what is going on and why we’ve taken such a step backwards, because these conditions, you would argue, are ideal for us in our car, and once again, it’s been the worst performance of the season.
“So we’re going to have a big sit-down this week and try to figure it out.” Antonelli went through his race, where he emphasised on improving his qualifying results. “Well, the car felt better with a bigger wing,” he said to media. “I felt much better in places where I was struggling a lot. Yeah, it was just a shame because, obviously, with the delayed start, it turned out it was a dry race pretty quickly.
“We couldn’t really use the bigger wing, because despite being much quicker in the corners than in the straights, it was really hard to keep up. And it was a shame, because the only opportunity I had to pass Ocon, I went a little bit wide, and I took a wet patch, and then just had no grip and he made the switch back. And then after that, the tyre was starting to suffer, and I just couldn’t get the run.
“But, still it’s learning, difficult conditions. Also, I tried to call quite early the switch. But because of Silverstone as well, we probably were a bit too cautious on that, we wanted to wait a bit more. And I think that’s where we lost some positions as well. But on the other hand, I think driving wise it was better this race and I just need to keep working for qualifying.
“Those few laps where I was in free air I definitely had a lot more fun, then being stuck is quite frustrating, because you can’t really unleash the real pace you have. When I was in free air, I did that lap and then once I was stuck, I was two seconds slower all of a sudden. It was tricky, but I think I shouldn’t be starting that far back.
“I think I need to work on my qualifying and work to get the confidence back with the car in order to start more at the front because in those races where I started more at the front, it was a completely different race,” summed up Antonelli, who revealed words of encouragement from Lewis Hamilton, who popped up in the Mercedes garage after the drivers’ parade.
“He came to say hi to the team, and definitely we had a couple of words,” said Antonelli. “He was telling me to keep my head up and that it’s normal to have bad weekends. And just to keep believing. It was really nice from him.”
Hamilton added: “I was walking from the drivers’ parade, so I just dropped to say hi to Bono, Shov and all the team. I can’t imagine what it’s like at 18 – or try to imagine what it’s like at 18 – to do what he’s doing. He’s been doing fantastic. But to be thrown in at the deep end at 18… he hadn’t even had his driving licence when he first started racing.
“I think it’s a lot on someone’s shoulders. He’s doing a great job and he’s got a great group of people around him. So, I think you’ve just got to take it in your stride, which I think he is. And he’s got Bono by his side. He doesn’t have anyone better.”
The big talking point after the race was the meeting Mercedes would stage on Monday. Shovlin concurred with Russell about the situation, even regards to the technical directive that the FIA laid out about the front wing flexing. The British racer reckons their performance dipped after the change. While Shovlin somewhere agrees, but notes it to be too complicated.
He says that the car worked fine in Canada with a different front wing. The meeting will be to decide the future direction, in terms of potentially reversing on some parts. Shovlin linked the performance dip of Antonelli to tricky car, which has affected Russell too, but his experience is helping him.
“I think obviously we had the change with the front wing in Barcelona,” continued Russell. “We then went in a slightly different direction afterwards to sort of 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 just reverting back to something that we had earlier in the season. Of course, you can’t 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. The car isn’t feeling as nice to drive at the moment as it once did, lacking rear stability, whereas at the start of the year it was much better. I think 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 said, maybe reversing back to some of the change that we made.”
Race strategy –
Shovlin: “I mean, if you look at what Lewis did where he went onto the dry tyre lap earlier, it looks like we were a bit conservative in that cross, so that’s about the only place that I think there was any opportunity in the race to have finished further up, but our focus is more on car pace, why we weren’t able to perform better in qualifying, why we weren’t quicker in the race, because we were dropping back from Max and Charles, so yeah, there was some opportunity in the race, but that’s not where the team is going to be focused over the next few days.”
Front wing change due to TD –
Shovlin: “Well, that’s what we need to understand, what we had early on in the year was a car that was working well at pretty much every circuit. We were generally fighting for the second row of the grid, if not the front row. It’s probably true for anyone that the TD won’t improve stability, but this wing was on the car in Montreal and it was fine. The fact is other people are able to balance their cars a bit better. There’s no doubt a solution in there for us, but as I said, we’re just looking at all the steps that we’ve taken with the car design over the last number of races.
“It isn’t just the front wing that’s changed and I’m sure there’s more that we can learn. As I said, that’s what the focus is on over the next few races, is trying to pinpoint why we’re getting this entry stability issue. I’d say as another point, yes, that TD on the front wing might take you in the wrong direction, but the fact is when we’ve dropped aero balance out of the car, the instability is still there. So, as I said, there’s something for us to learn.”
Antonelli’s performance –
Shovlin: “I think what you’ve seen in the recent qualifyings is that George is leaning on his many years of experience in an F1 car to try and make the most of a difficult car when it comes to quali. Kimi hasn’t got that to drop back on and that’s probably why you’ve seen a bit of a shift in his results recently. But, again, it goes back to the fact we’ve got to solve that problem because there’s still a long way to go this year. It is quite likely something that we’ve changed on the car and we just need to recover a bit of, just get back to a baseline where it’s working more normally. Kimi’s on a steep learning curve and he’s going to be getting better as a driver.
“The fact that his early performances were better than they are now is almost certainly that the car’s not as competitive and you can see that mirrored in George’s results. So, I think we’ve seen it lots of times before as well. When a young driver comes in and they’re in a very good car, they can often really impress. When a young driver comes in and they’re in a difficult car, it’s very hard to get it together week in, week out. And we’ve seen enough from Kimi to know that there’s a great deal of talent there. But what will help George will also help Kimi and it will probably help Kimi more.”
Hungary changes –
Shovlin: “Well, it depends what extent you’re talking about but it’s definitely possible for us to look at changing aspects of the car for Budapest. How deep we go will depend on what parts we’ve got around us. And, as I said, there’s quite a lot that we’ve changed so we’ve got a meeting with the drivers tomorrow to go through some of what we’ve done over the year to try and make sure that our efforts are focused on the right things, not just changing things for the sake of it.”
Here’s fastest lap from Andrea Kimi Antonelli: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/dhl-fastest-lap-award-2025-belgian-grand-prix.1838824742532879166
Here’s how F1 Belgian GP panned out