{"id":808722,"date":"2026-07-18T18:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T18:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/808722\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T18:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T18:46:12","slug":"not-his-fault-wolff-gives-reason-for-russells-belgian-grand-prix-qualifying-deficit-to-antonelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/808722\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Not his fault’ \u2013\u00a0Wolff gives reason for Russell’s Belgian Grand Prix Qualifying deficit to Antonelli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toto Wolff admits that some of George Russell’s deficit to Mercedes team mate Kimi Antonelli in Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix is “not his fault”.<\/p>\n

Antonelli<\/a> claimed his sixth pole position of the season on Saturday in Spa<\/a>, beating Max Verstappen to the fastest time by more than three tenths.<\/p>\n

While Antonelli will start from the front row once again, Russell<\/a> was only able to qualify P4, but will be promoted a spot due to a 10-place grid penalty for Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

Russell complained about straight-line speed through all three practice sessions and was left half a second adrift in Qualifying, with Wolff admitting that the Briton lacked top speed compared with his Italian team mate.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge is obviously suffering from a lack of straight-line speed we are unable to explain \u2013 a couple of tenths,” Mercedes’ Team Principal told F1 TV.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ve literally left no stone unturned. Is it the power unit? Kimi has a brand-new power unit and this makes the difference? We will see on the next tracks because they will be less energy starved, it doesn\u2019t make a big difference.<\/p>\n

“Then there\u2019s a few tenths that George needs to find, lots of it he has already found but over a few corners there\u2019s still two tenths, two and a half tenths.<\/p>\n

“So overall, he\u2019s recovered well but at the moment he doesn\u2019t gel with the car. He hasn\u2019t for the last two weekends and that\u2019s probably not his fault, we just need to bring it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli holds a 25-point lead in the Drivers’ standings<\/a> ahead of Sunday’s race, despite having non-scored in two of the last three races due to car problems.<\/p>\n

Wolff admitted that despite this, the momentum was still behind the Italian teenager as he looks for his sixth Grands Prix win this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was born to do this. He\u2019s in a way reflective, calm, when the situation doesn\u2019t work out,” said Wolff.<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s not much complication around him. They do the work with [race engineers] Bono and Stefan and his ability to compartmentalise, analyse, put it aside and then just go.<\/p>\n

“Also, obviously he has the momentum behind him. It\u2019s much easier if you are the underdog a bit \u2013 the young kid \u2013 things are going easier than being the one who is expected to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff admits that some of George Russell’s deficit to Mercedes team mate Kimi Antonelli in Qualifying for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-808722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}