{"id":294596,"date":"2025-07-27T00:34:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294596\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T00:34:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T00:34:10","slug":"george-russell-mercedes-has-taken-big-step-backwards-amid-f1-belgian-gp-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/294596\/","title":{"rendered":"George Russell: Mercedes has taken \u2018big step backwards\u2019 amid F1 Belgian GP struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>George Russell believes Mercedes has \u201ctaken a big step backwards\u201d as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/series\/single-seater\/formula-1\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Formula 1<\/a> season has gone on, after a difficult qualifying session for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/racing\/2025\/belgium\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Belgian Grand Prix<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Brit will line-up sixth on the grid at Spa-Francorchamps, having been unable to compete against McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, Russell eventually dropped behind Williams\u2019 Alex Albon, who lines-up fifth, as team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli failed to make it out of Q1.<\/p>\n<p>It was a wretched result in the Sprint Race earlier in the day, too, as Russell finished 12th.<\/p>\n<p>Russell, who enjoyed a bright opening half to the season, including a win in Canada, is unsure of what the W16 challenger is suffering from, but is aware that it will need to be rectified.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy laps felt really strong,\u201d he told media including <strong>Motorsport Week<\/strong>. \u201cBut clearly as a team we\u2019re off the pace this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd, other than yesterday, this is my worst qualification of the year \u2013 same for Kimi so we need to understand what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/George-Russell-F1-Belgium-1024x576.webp.webp\" alt=\"George Russell says Mercedes has taken a &quot;big step backwards&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-217490\"  \/>George Russell says Mercedes has taken a \u201cbig step backwards\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Russell hopeful that possible wet weather can even the field<\/p>\n<p>Russell feels that Mercedes is drifting further towards the middle of the pack, essentially giving up on any discernible chances of a positive result come race day.<\/p>\n<p>\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 Russell explained.<\/p>\n<p>\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\u2019ve had one in the last six, and clearly we\u2019ve taken a big step backwards towards the midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But things could be thrown up if it will rain, which is forecast and a common eventuality at Spa, but the W16\u2019s set-up for the race may not be conducive to the wet.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn stint one there won\u2019t be any more overtakes [than in the Sprint Race],\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n<p>\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<p>\u201cBut it looks to be wet \u2013 wet races often create some carnage as well\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE<\/strong> \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.motorsportweek.com\/2025\/07\/26\/charles-leclerc-hopeful-ferraris-f1-belgian-gp-upgrades-have-revived-qualifying-magic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Charles Leclerc hopeful Ferrari\u2019s F1 Belgian\u00a0GP\u00a0upgrades have revived qualifying magic\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes Mercedes has \u201ctaken a big step backwards\u201d as the Formula 1 season has gone on,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":294597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[109367,4199,707,4200,9824,4859,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-294596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-belgiangp","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-george-russell","13":"tag-mercedes","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114922393767116256","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}