Russell says Mercedes has identified the calibration issue behind his Spa struggles

Russell’s difficult Spa weekend

George Russell believes Mercedes has identified the root cause of the problems that have recently prevented him from matching team-mate Kimi Antonelli consistently. Crucially, he says the issue was not his driving style — meaning he can now stop adapting his inputs to compensate for a problem that was not actually there.

Mercedes has since linked the problem to calibration. Russell said the hardware itself was not faulty, but that some of the numbers being displayed were not correctly calibrated. The team also found that deployment was not operating optimally around the lap, an issue Russell said had affected Oscar Piastri as well.

A change in approach for Hungary

The discovery has offered Russell relief, both inside and outside the cockpit. Data from earlier rounds had led Mercedes and the driver to believe that his technique was contributing to the performance deficit. As a result, Russell spent time reconsidering how he picked up the throttle, used the gears and managed his inputs before full throttle.

“The data was telling us that was probably the reason, but it turned out it wasn’t the reason,” Russell explained. “So all of that effort over the course of three sessions trying to re-optimise my driving around a new technique was kind of for nothing.”

For Hungary, Russell says he can return to a more natural approach and concentrate on driving quickly rather than managing the power unit through every corner.

“I’m looking forward now to going into a weekend where I can just try and focus on driving fast, focus on the simple things,” he said.

That may sound straightforward, Russell acknowledged, but Formula 1 rarely is. Even so, removing the need to drive around misleading data could provide Mercedes with a clearer assessment of both the car and its driver at the next round.