George Russell: Mercedes Driver looking for answers as a team will keep a “big meeting” to discuss the loss of form | F1 News

George Russell revealed that Mercedes was holding a “big meeting” this week in order to understand the loss of the team in the last rounds of the Formula 1 2025 season.

The Briton started strongly the year, claiming four podiums while he ended in the top five in each of the first six races of the season.

The highlight of Mercedes’ campaign came when Russell won and the Kimi Antonelli team finished on the podium in Canada in June, but the three races since has been “disappointing”.

Russell finished fifth at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, but finished half a minute of the dominant McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, and – perhaps more concerning – almost 15 seconds of the battle for the third between Ferrari, Charles Leclerc and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

Russell said Sky Sports F1: “It was quite disappointing, to be honest.

“Because we tend to promote the cooler conditions. So we could not really ask for a better time for us. But we have not had a rhythm recently. We must sit all.

“We are going to have a big meeting this week with all designers and engineers. To understand the decisions we have taken in recent weeks or last months. And why we have returned back. Hoping for some improvements in Hungary.”

Mercedes has introduced a series of W16 upgrades in the past two months, but Russell admits that the team has failed to extract the performance of new parts.

He added: “P5 probably flatters the real rhythm of the car, so I am at least happy that we have obtained as much as possible.

“We made a change of direction a few months ago, and I think it was since that time that we took a step back.

“Sometimes it takes a few races to understand what are the real reasons for this lack of rhythm, but it clearly seems that we have to come back to what we had earlier in the season.”

Does the change in the frontage rule explain Mercedes’ difficulties?

Mercedes, the head of track engineering, Andrew Shovlin, admitted after the spa race that the team had trouble balanced his car since the introduction of a technical directive (TD) at the Spanish Grand Prix which limited the authorized quantity of bending to the front wing.

He said: “What we had earlier in the year was a car that worked well in just about all circuits.

“We were generally fighting for the second row of the grid, otherwise the first row. This is probably true for anyone who will not improve stability, but we had this wing on the car in Montreal and it was good.

“The fact is that other people are able to balance their cars a little better. There is no doubt for us.

“It is not only the front wing that has changed, and I’m sure there is more than we can learn. This is what the accent is on the next races, trying to determine why we get this problem of entry stability.”

Mercedes has little time to reverse their fortune before the second stage of a back to back in Hungary this weekend before the summer holidays.

Confirming the “big meeting” mentioned by Russell would take place on Monday, Shovlin expressed his confidence that positive changes can be made to Hungarring.

He added: “It is certainly possible for us to watch changing car aspects for Budapest.

“The depth of our appearance will depend on the parts we have around us.

“There are a lot of things we have changed, so we have a meeting with the drivers tomorrow to go through a part of what we have done during the year to try to make sure that our efforts are focused on good things and do not only change things for good.”

The F1 immediately goes to the Hungarian Grand Prix for the last race before the summer holidays in sport, watch live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday. Stream Sky Sports with now – no contract, cancel at any time