{"id":26655,"date":"2025-07-27T06:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T06:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26655\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T06:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T06:24:08","slug":"george-russell-laments-mercedes-big-step-backwards-towards-the-midfield-in-belgian-gp-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/26655\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell laments Mercedes \u201cbig step backwards towards the midfield\u201d in Belgian GP qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix<\/a> ended painfully for Mercedes<\/a>\u2019 George Russell<\/a> when he was stripped of on-track victory for being underweight – but in 2025 the disappointments have been stacking up even before the lights go out.<\/p>\n

Russell qualified 13th for the sprint race, his worst grid position of the year, and spent the entire race in a DRS train behind Yuki Tsunoda<\/a>\u2019s Red Bull, finishing 12th thanks to Pierre Gasly<\/a>\u2019s Alpine<\/a> not making it to the grid. In qualifying for the grand prix Russell reached Q3 but could do no better than sixth, 0.639s off pole position.<\/p>\n

He also had the indignity of being deposed from fifth place after the chequered flag by Alex Albon<\/a>\u2019s Williams<\/a>, a Mercedes customer. Team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> fared even worse, being eliminated in Q1 and is set for the pitlane start<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy laps felt really strong,\u201d Russell said. \u201cBut clearly as a team we’re off the pace this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, other than yesterday, this is my worst qualification of the year \u2013 same for Kimi [Antonelli] so we need to understand what’s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the limited practice time during a sprint weekend, teams are naturally reticent to make extensive set-up changes between the sprint race and grand prix qualifying since to go too far would be to venture into the unknown. To alter too much is a mark of desperation, so Mercedes restricted the scope of work on Russell\u2019s car.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes, Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing, Yuki Tsunoda, Red Bull Racing Team<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHistorically, on sprint race weekends, if you have a bad sprint, if you turn the car upside down for the next day, it rarely works,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we made some sensible changes, but we just need to understand \u2013 the first six races of the year, we had four podiums, now we’ve had one in the last six, and clearly we’ve taken a big step backwards towards the midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that Mercedes\u2019 relative performance is trending slightly downwards. At the beginning of the season Russell earned his podiums on merit; his run to second place in Bahrain, driving around a major car problem, was particularly noteworthy.<\/p>\n

Russell\u2019s win in Canada was something of an outlier since he benefitted from Lando Norris<\/a> detonating McLaren<\/a>\u2019s race by crashing into team-mate Oscar Piastri<\/a>. Generally speaking, Mercedes\u2019 performance has been more consistent than Red Bull but it has enjoyed fewer peaks.<\/p>\n

While Russell \u2018won\u2019 from sixth on the grid in Belgium last season, that was more a factor of a daring tyre one-stop strategy which was principally his call. This year the strategic picture is complicated by Pirelli introducing a \u2018step\u2019 between the hard and medium-compound tyres in an effort to make one-stops a riskier call.<\/p>\n

But, given the high chance of rain on race day and associated lower temperatures, it\u2019s now unlikely the hard tyre will be used \u2013 even if the track is dry enough to run on slicks. A two-stop soft-medium-medium is understood to be the optimal plan in those circumstances.<\/p>\n

If it is wet, Mercedes will likely suffer more since both drivers were running low downforce levels during qualifying.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIn stint one there won’t be any more overtakes [than in the sprint race],\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut of course when you pit, if it\u2019s dry, nobody knows if this hard tyre will be a good tyre or not, and that may force people for a two-stop, people might try the one-stop, so always when you have a variety of strategy, options appear.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it looks to be wet \u2013 wet races often create some carnage as well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Photos from Belgian GP – Sprint and Qualifying<\/p>\n

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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\n Belgian GP – Saturday, in photos
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\"Oliver<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Fans<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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\"Charles<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Max<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"George<\/p>\n


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\"Frederic<\/p>\n


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\"Gabriel<\/p>\n


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\"Charles<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Polesitter<\/p>\n


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\"Lando<\/p>\n


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\"Lewis<\/p>\n


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\n Belgian GP – Saturday, in photos
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In this article<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix ended painfully for Mercedes\u2019 George Russell when he was stripped of on-track victory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2968,1687,13216,372,6537,9307,6964,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-26655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-belgian-gp","tag-f1","tag-f1-belgian-grand-prix-2025","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26655","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=26655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}