Jolyon Palmer believes that George Russell\u2019s lack of pace compared to his team mate Kimi Antonelli is a \u201chuge problem\u201d in the Briton\u2019s title challenge, as Mercedes continue to search for answers to his struggles.<\/p>\n
After storming to a dominant win at the season opener in Australia, Russell<\/a> lost ground to Antonelli<\/a> due to poor reliability and feeling uncomfortable in the car, which has left him confused at their contrasting results<\/a>.<\/p>\n Victory in the Austrian Grand Prix<\/a> and podiums in Barcelona-Catalunya and Great Britain have now brought him to within 25 points of the Italian\u2019s lead in the standings<\/a>, but the underlying problems still remain \u2013 Russell himself admitted that he \u201cdidn\u2019t deserve\u201d P2 at Silverstone<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the latest episode of F1 Nation<\/a>, former Renault driver Palmer reflected on the Mercedes<\/a> driver\u2019s rollercoaster season as he said: \u201cWhen was the last time George was quicker than Kimi in a race? Melbourne. That’s a huge problem.<\/p>\n “It\u2019s so generous that George is this close to Kimi, to be honest, given their relative performance.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s one thing that will be sitting uneasily with Kimi: his level of performance is so good, but he only has a 25 point [lead]. George is a driver that’s fully capable of finding his feet again and dishing out three wins on the bounce and having that swagger back.\u201d<\/p>\n Team Principal Toto Wolff has repeatedly echoed Palmer\u2019s sentiment that Russell won\u2019t give up<\/a> on the title fight easily, but he recently conceded that he\u2019s having a \u201cdifficult time gelling with the car\u201d<\/a> whilst Antonelli found his rhythm almost immediately.<\/p>\n The teenager\u2019s five-race winning streak was only brought to an end when a mechanical issue forced his retirement in Barcelona, and further problems have so far prevented him from making a return to the top step.<\/p>\n Although Mercedes\u2019 reliability issues have taken points away from both drivers, Palmer explained why Antonelli is better placed to recover more quickly than Russell and maximise every weekend.<\/p>\n \u201cSpeaking to the guys at Mercedes, they were saying it feels like Kimi is able to drive it more on the limit of grip than George,\u201d he said. \u201cGeorge is not able to take it to that level, basically 100% of the car. They were almost saying he\u2019s under-driving it slightly.<\/p>\n \u201cKimi is so in tune with what the car is doing. He’s got some feeling inside him, basically your innate skill to feel like the car. And he’s able to do that more consistently. If you look through the data a lot of the time you see that first lap on a new tyre [in Qualifying], Kimi is able to execute the lap.<\/p>\n \u201cSecond lap on the tyre, George gets much closer. Kimi is taking it a little bit more risk when there’s a bit more grip around taking more out of the tyre. It’s a feeling that George is getting and I don’t know how easy that is to fix.\u201d<\/p>\n The hurdles facing Russell were just one of the talking points that emerged from the eventful British Grand Prix weekend, with Palmer joining host Tom Clarkson and commentator Alex Jacques to delve into all of them on F1 Nation.<\/p>\n To hear the full episode, hit go on the audio player above or click here<\/a> to listen to the latest episode on your preferred podcasting platform.<\/p>\n