George Russell hints at cause of strange Mercedes engine problem

George Russell has given details about the potential cause of his mysterious straight-line speed issues over the British and Belgian Grands Prix.

Russell was quite outspoken at Spa about his struggles to match team-mate Kimi Antonelli for top-end pace, and even lost four-tenths of a second alone through the final sector at Spa, having even been marginally ahead of the Italian at the Les Combes chicane.

Russell then suffered another, unrelated issue with the power unit at the start and out of Turn 1, which left him exposed on the run up the hill to Les Combes, where he ultimately collided with Lewis Hamilton and was eliminated.

From the investigations Mercedes has done into the issues, it has become clear that Russell's driving style is not to blame for the issues with straight-line speed, as he zeroed in calibration numbers deep within the power unit, which are believed to have 'front-loaded' his power unit into deploying too much energy too early in the Spa lap. 

"Well, effectively, it was numbers on a screen that were not quite calibrated properly, and so it's not like the hardware is wrong, or there was a problem with the hardware," Russell told media, including RacingNews365. 

"But there were two issues in Spa as well. I think the deployment was not quite deploying optimally across the lap, and we saw this with Oscar Piastri as well. We had a similar issue, so that was one of my problems. 

"But then on top of that, we had something separate. It was all linked to the same calibration not being quite right, and, I'm not going to say simply numbers on a screen, but now we know which numbers potentially were not correct.

"We can rectify that, recalibrate things, and get the power unit to perform at its full potential, but for me, this is history. It's behind me now. I

I'm just looking forward to coming into Budapest. It's a circuit I like. It's going to be a real challenging weekend. 

"We know it's one of the least power-sensitive circuits of the season, and we've got Ferrari close behind. They have a better chassis than power unit at the moment, so, of all the circuits, you can expect them to be competitive. 

"And Kimi is performing super well every single race weekend, so it's not going to be a straightforward weekend."