Russell 'numb to disappointment' after bitter blow to title hopes

George Russell says he is "numb to the disappointment" after another problem at the Belgian Grand Prix led to him losing nearly all the ground in the championship he had gained on team-mate Kimi Antonelli in the past month.

Russell crashed out on the first lap at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday after a collision with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, who was penalised for the incident.

With Antonelli winning for the sixth time in 10 races this season, the Italian doubled his lead over Russell in one fell swoop.

"When it happens so often, you just get used to it," Russell said.

The Briton's remarks are a reference to the series of issues he has suffered this year that have contributed to Antonelli's lead.

These include technical issues in China qualifying, a safety car turning the race on its head in Japan, a retirement while leading in Canada, and the still-unresolved farrago over erroneous pit-lane speeding penalties in Monaco.

Russell said after the British Grand Prix last time out, where Antonelli suffered a second problem in three races that prevented him scoring, that the issues had now pretty much equalised across the two cars.

He felt his 25-point deficit after that race was a fair reflection of the balance of performance across the season.

So to have it upended again so soon was a bitter blow.

"I made a good start, I made a great first corner and I was choked up right behind [Max] Verstappen," Russell said. "But for whatever reason, the battery decided not to recharge at Turn One.

"So I went round the first corner, the battery didn't charge and I exited the first corner 35% down [on electrical energy].

"Because it didn't charge, I also had a boost problem. The turbo didn't sort itself out, so I had no power.

"I got to the top of Eau Rouge with 0% on the battery. Quite frankly, it was dangerous. I got swamped by three cars.

"I shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. That's why I'm most angry. The incident with Lewis, honestly, I think was a racing incident.

"He didn't do it on purpose. He was more to blame than me. But he didn't do anything reckless. That was one of those things.

"I'm just most angry that I was in that position in the first place. I was in a great position out of Turn One and I was ready to fight the two guys ahead of me up to Turn Five. Instead, I get swamped by three drivers."

As if that was not enough, this latest engine issue followed a weekend in which Mercedes had been chasing another one.

After being more than a second slower than Antonelli in Friday practice, Russell had been told by the team that the deficit was caused by driving style.

Essentially, they said, because he was less at ease with the car in the corners, he was making more corrections than Antonelli. Each one of these cost momentum and speed, the time loss of which needed to be filled in with battery energy. So he arrived at the final sector with less battery charge than his team-mate, and lost time on the final flat-out section.

When it got to qualifying, though, Russell had narrowed nearly all that gap in his driving, and there was still an engine power anomaly that could not be explained. At McLaren, who use Mercedes engines, exactly the same phenomenon was affecting Oscar Piastri compared with Lando Norris.

This issue in the race, although also related to deployment, was an entirely new one.

"This time something totally different," Russell said, "but it's every day."

As it happens, a lack of straight-line performance that Mercedes were not expecting also made it harder to Antonelli to close on Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to reclaim the lead he had lost to an ill-timed virtual safety car (VSC).

But it didn't stop Antonelli winning in the end, and now he is back in a commanding position in the championship and looking as imposing as ever.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said: "With George, over the weekend there was definitely something on the engine that we have identified that meant he only had less energy to deploy into Turn 18. That was the most visible.

"It's good that we spotted it here because, in Budapest [next weekend], which is not energy starved, it would have been more difficult to identify.

"But it still doesn't make it better for him and that probably accounted for half the gap or a little bit more that he had to Kimi.

"And when it comes to today, all Mercedes engines had a lack of energy out of Turn One. So that wasn't only George.

"It affected him more than Kimi but also Kimi had that issue to a certain degree."

Wolff said he would talk to Russell to try to ensure he was in the best mindset he could be going into the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before F1's four-week summer break.

"You have to understand that the driver is very emotional when these situations happen. But on the other side as a Formula 1 driver, you are part of a very elite group," Wolff said.

"It's quite an honour to drive a Mercedes. Sometimes we let ourselves down and it's not just the driver but it's also us. It's valuable constructor points that we lose in our fight against Ferrari.

"So I hope the numb feeling goes away. We will try to help to recreate optimism and positivity.

"All of the drivers, at least the ones that I have worked with, when they have different difficult spells and it happens to any sports person, you need to find a way of motivating or building up and George has his way and I'm definitely trying to do that.

"I've known him for such a long time, I understand the frustrations and the team is 100% behind him."

As unfortunate as Russell was, it should take nothing away from the quality of Antonelli's weekend.

He was more comfortable in the car than Russell, the pace came more easily to him, and he never once looked like not winning the race, not even when the VSC gifted Leclerc the lead.

Mercedes' battery deployment issue also affected him on the first lap - it seems the fact Verstappen passed him on the entry to Eau Rouge was down to this, rather than clever driving by Antonelli to get the Red Bull's slipstream up the long straight that follows.

"It was crazy," Antonelli said. "To be fair, I was so confused about what was happening because Max came flying past me before Eau Rouge, and then I passed him back.

"But then I saw Charles almost come alongside me, and I was like: 'What the heck is happening?' I had no clue. I was just trying to hold the position on track, and I was looking in my mirror the whole time because I just saw so many cars coming. But it was a crazy start. Luckily, we got away cleanly."

These issues, it is becoming apparent, are common for most teams in the context of the complexity of this year's engines, their close to 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, and inherent energy starvation.

Antonelli said: "Sometimes you just don't understand. I had the same in Australia, for example. It can be a little bit down to driving, but sometimes the system just does something a little bit different.

"For the team, you have to appreciate the work, because the system is very complicated. Of course, they're trying to make things a bit easier, but sometimes it's hard to get it perfect.

"Also, with the driving, sometimes, especially on tracks like this that are very energy-demanding, if you start driving differently, then for the system it's a bit crazy. So, it is tricky.

"But I have to agree that this weekend, for George, there was a slight issue. I'm sure it will be fixed for Budapest."

Antonelli had just made his pit stop when the VSC was deployed to allow marshals to recover some debris from the track.

It was the second time it had happened. The first was too early for Antonelli to stop, and this second one gave Ferrari a chance to stop Leclerc and have him rejoin still ahead of Antonelli, as a driver loses about half as much race time stopping when the VSC is out and cars are restricted to a slower lap time for safety reasons.

Although Antonelli was able to consistently build an advantage over the early laps, and then slowly reel in Leclerc and pass to reclaim the lead in relative comfort, his pace was perhaps not as strong compared with everyone else as expected.

In that, at least, there is some hope for competitive racing to come.

Lando Norris, whose McLaren team have the first of two imminent upgrade packages coming for Hungary, said: "Maybe a little bit surprised they weren't much stronger.

"They still won the race, so it's not like they had a bad weekend. But we were certainly closer [on pace] today than we were expecting, and that's a good sign."