SILVERSTONE, England -- George Russell has revealed his car is losing up to 0.3 seconds on the straights compared to teammate Kimi Antonelli at the British Grand Prix, saying his Mercedes team is unable to understand why.
Russell qualified fourth for Sunday’s British Grand Prix -- 0.370 seconds off the pace of Antonelli’s pole position lap -- just one week on from his second victory of the season in Austria.
The two Mercedes drivers are both in the fight for the title this year, although Russell is lagging 43 points behind his teammate after Antonelli’s sprint race victory on Saturday.
Russell said he had been at a disadvantage compared to Antonelli throughout the Silverstone weekend, including during sprint qualifying in which he qualified fifth.
“All weekend we’ve been losing lots of time in the straights,” he said. “Yesterday in SQ3 it was almost three tenths I lost in the straights.
“Again, today qualifying, you’re looking at speed traps and it’s 3km/h down in the middle sector, 6km/h down in the last sector compared to my teammate and compared to the [Mercedes-powered] McLaren cars.
“The team are working super hard to understand why that is. We thought we found the problem this morning and we thought the brakes were locking on but we’re not convinced that’s the issue.
“It just compounds everything when you get into a session knowing you’re at a bit of a disadvantage.”
Russell ran wide and into the gravel at Luffield in the first session of qualifying, but said there was “no damage” to his car as a result of his mistake.
- British Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli overcomes Lewis Hamilton to take first sprint victory
- Lando Norris wishes George Russell ‘good luck’ after eyeing up his grandstand at British GP
- George Russell baffled by Ferrari pace at British GP: ‘Some things aren’t quite making sense’
He also said the lack of straight-line speed was not down to the deployment of electrical energy from his power unit’s battery.
“The deployment looks okay,” he added. “I’m just offset on speed in the straight.
“It just looks like I’m running more of a draggier car. If you look at the speed trace of qualifying yesterday and you look at the speed traps from today, it’s the same. I wouldn’t have been on pole, for sure, but I definitely would have been higher up yesterday.
“I think I would have been in the fight yesterday for pole and today in qualifying for run one of Q3, I’d have been at the front and then the mindset changes. I’ve just sort of felt on the back foot coming into today. Yeah, I’ll do my best tomorrow to get on the podium.”
