Mercedes calls meeting after Belgian GP: Russell seeks urgent solutions.

Mercedes Seeks Urgent Solutions After Performance Drop

The Mercedes team has called crucial meetings before the Hungarian Grand Prix with the aim of analyzing and understanding the reasons behind the notable decrease in their performance in the last races. Since his victory at the Canadian Grand Prix, three races ago, George Russell has not managed to finish in a position higher than fifth place. Both he and his teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli have experienced difficulties with the handling of their single-seaters. In the Belgian Grand Prix, Russell finished in fifth place, 35 seconds behind the winner, Oscar Piastri, and only five seconds ahead of Alex Albon’s Williams. Despite the cooler conditions at Spa-Francorchamps, which generally favor Mercedes’ characteristics, the car failed to match the performance of its competitors.

We need to really understand what’s going on and why we’ve regressed so much, because these conditions today, one could argue, are ideal for us and our car, and once again, it’s been the worst performance of the season.

George Russell

Russell suspects that the stricter regulations on the flexing of the front wings, implemented through a technical directive (TD) at the Spanish Grand Prix, affected Mercedes more than its rivals. The most rigorous tests on the flexible bodywork forced all teams to redesign their front wings for Spain, reducing the possibility of using a flexible front wing to balance the car between high and low-speed corners.

Clearly, from that point, we have taken a big step back.

George Russell

Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ head of track engineering, believes the problems are more complex than the change of the front wing in Spain, especially since the car was the best in the next race in Canada. Shovlin stated that the team is analyzing all the changes made to the car’s design in the last races to identify the cause of the stability problems.

The focus in the upcoming races is to try to determine why we are having this stability issue on entry.

Andrew Shovlin

Shovlin also mentioned the possibility of making changes to the car for the Hungarian Grand Prix, depending on the available parts. The team plans to meet with the drivers to review the changes made during the year and ensure that efforts are focused on the correct areas.