George Russell had to watch again during qualifying for the Belgian GP as Andrea Kimi Antonelli took pole position. The Brit especially lost a lot of speed on the straights. Earlier, he attributed this loss of speed to his own driving style, but now Russell thinks there is a ‘serious problem’ with the W17: “I just lost speed while going full throttle on the straight.”
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While Andrea Kimi Antonelli took his sixth pole position at Spa-Francorchamps, teammate George Russell had to settle for fourth on the grid. The Brit was five tenths off the pole lap of the young Italian. Ahead of the Grand Prix weekend in Belgium, Russell himself explained his deficit to the young championship leader by his driving style. After qualifying at Spa, however, he comes to a different conclusion.
“Yesterday (during free practice, ed.) I lost eight tenths on the straights, today (in qualifying, ed.) I lose four tenths,” he told the media present at Spa. “So it’s a step in the right direction, but we have seen this since Silverstone – we thought we had found the problem, we thought it was simply the brakes. It wasn’t the brakes.”
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Russell then looked for the cause in himself. “Then we thought it was my driving style, with the throttle, and I convinced myself it was something in me, with the driving style. Now we are very convinced that it is not the driving style and that there is a serious problem here. The team is working hard to fix it. But every lap I drive, when I see that I lose somewhere between two tenths and six tenths on the straights, that is quite frustrating.”
‘Powerless’
The Mercedes driver also felt quite ‘powerless’ during qualifying due to the loss of speed on the straights. “Even on my last lap, for some reason, I lost another one and a half tenths on myself. And that only on the straight,” said Russell. “You look at your steering wheel and just lose speed while going full throttle on the straight. We don’t know what’s going on. Honestly, I don’t think it’s the power unit. The team is really on top of it now trying to fix it.”
Read everything about the Belgian GP here
