{"id":23399,"date":"2025-07-25T19:03:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/23399\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T19:03:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T19:03:11","slug":"george-russell-suggests-damage-a-factor-in-belgian-grand-prix-sprint-qualifying-disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/23399\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell suggests damage a factor in Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">George Russell believes that gravel on the track from team mate Kimi Antonelli\u2019s off in Sprint Qualifying could have caused damage that brought his own session to an early close at the Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\"><a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/latest\/article\/piastri-dominates-for-sprint-qualifying-pole-position-at-spa-ahead-of.5jmGju5W4gY3503UmzlFuV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Neither Mercedes featured in the final phase of Sprint Qualifying on Friday<\/a>, with Antonelli dramatically spinning into the gravel at Stavelot in SQ1. As he recovered to the track, stones were scattered across the asphalt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Antonelli exited the session in last place and, while Russell was able to escape in fifth, his afternoon came to a close in SQ2, where he could manage only the 13th fastest time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Confident that the <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/teams\/mercedes\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercedes<\/a> has strong underlying pace, Russell said: \u201cIn Q1, I ran over all of that gravel when Kimi went off. For the rest of that lap, it felt terrible, and the next lap, it felt terrible. Then my lap in SQ2 felt terrible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cWe saw some damage on the car. We need to see if that\u2019s the reason, because obviously, it\u2019s a big shock to be out in SQ2, and the gap was so big. I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a reason for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Sharing Russell\u2019s confidence that a poor Friday does not mean Mercedes is out for the count in Belgium, Antonelli said: \u201cThe car felt good over the lap, so I\u2019m definitely confident for tomorrow, and we\u2019ll just try to reset and look forward to tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">As for his off, Antonelli was left searching for answers, adding: \u201cIt was actually a pretty decent lap.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;I was around P4, and it just was weird because I lost it completely on exit and I just need to check. Maybe it was a gust of wind, but it was quite weird, the way I lost the car.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">With one eye on the potential for wet weather on Sunday, Antonelli said: &#8220;It\u2019s going to be important tomorrow to do a good quali, and then Sunday might be wet, so a lot of opportunities, but we\u2019ll focus on tomorrow [for now].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes that gravel on the track from team mate Kimi Antonelli\u2019s off in Sprint Qualifying could&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23400,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-23399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}