George Russell will start Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix race from the third row, alongside McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. The Mercedes driver ended qualifying in seventh place, 1.025 seconds behind Max Verstappen, but will start the race from sixth following the Dutchman’s 10-place grid penalty which will see the Red Bull driver starting from eleventh.
Speaking after Saturday’s qualifying session, Russell stated that he thought his P7 qualifying finish had been a fair result, though he acknowledged that his performance during the session had not been his finest.
“I think P7 was a fair result. My side, it’s definitely not easy out there and not our finest session, but as I said, I think it was a fair result. And to be fair, it was quite close from P3 to P8.”
Russell was also asked about whether the team’s decision to change the floor of the W15 ahead of Saturday’s final practice and qualifying sessions had solved the problems that the team had experienced with pace during the Friday practice sessions.
“No, not at all,” he said. He explained that the team had been struggling at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in recent years and that as the other teams had experienced fluctuations in their performance during their weekend, the decision had been made to revert to more familiar specifications.
This, he stated, would allow the team to determine whether their struggles at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps were related to the circuit itself as opposed to the recent upgrade package.
“I think it was, we’ve struggled here the last three years, and the fluctuation in performance of all the teams in the circuit itself was pretty substantial. I think it was important for us to revert back to something we know and see in the race tomorrow if it’s a challenge with Spa for us, which we’re pretty confident it is, as opposed to the upgrades.”
He added that the most recent Mercedes upgrades had been “nothing substantial” and were simply a part of the planned development process for the W15 for the 2024 Formula 1 season. While he acknowledged that the team would need to review and assess their findings from Friday’s practice sessions, he stated that the team was confident that the upgrades would perform as expected.
“So, you know, the upgrades were nothing substantial. It’s just sort of part of the development over the course of the year. And it gives us time now to sort of review what we did yesterday and go from there. But we’re pretty confident those upgrades will work as expected.”
The Mercedes driver was questioned further on his earlier comments about the team’s struggles at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in recent years, especially with their success at Silverstone, a circuit with similar features.
“I don’t know,” he answered, adding that the teams needed to try to understand the cause for the variation in performance between the circuits.
“I mean, it’s been three years in a row that we’ve been very quick in Silverstone, obviously this season, exceptionally quick, and struggled in Spa. On paper, you’d say, you know, we’re not exactly the same type of circuit, but it has high speed here, a bit of low speed, same for Silverstone. We need to try and understand why that is.”
He stated that there seemed to be “something inherent” in the cars which allowed them to perform optimally at certain circuits. He highlighted Red Bull, as an example of this, stating that their best performances seemed to be in Belgium and Austria. The strongest Mercedes performances, he added, seemed to be at Silverstone and Barcelona.
“And you know, there seems to be something inherent in the cars that work at certain circuits. You know, Red Bull are always flying here, as an example. This is probably their strongest circuit of the season, along with Austria. And for us, Silverstone, you know, Barcelona, them sort of circuits, we tend to go very well at. So yeah, we need to understand that.”
When asked whether the variable performances could be a result of ride height, Russell stated that he did not think that it was as the ride height at Silverstone was typically similar to that at Spa-Francorchamps.
“No, I don’t think it’s ride height, because in terms of the range of ride height [that] you go through, here in Spa is very similar to what you would experience at Silverstone. So, yeah, I don’t think it’s that.”
He did, however, admit that it was “tricky” to correctly place the car with the amount of bottoming experienced through Eau Rouge, and stated that, as a result of this, the pace was typically dictated by that required for Eau Rouge. He added that the team needed to assess why that was the case.
“It’s obviously very tricky to place the car in the right position with how much bottoming you have through Eau Rouge, so you’re sort of dictating the right pace based on Eau Rouge. So, yeah, we need to assess why that’s the case.”
Russell was also asked about his confidence in keeping Red Bull’s Max Verstappen behind him. The Mercedes driver admitted that he expected Verstappen to come through the pack quickly.
“I’m pretty confident that he’s going to come through very quickly.”
However, the Mercedes driver acknowledged that high tyre degradation, similar to that seen during the Friday practice sessions could play a significant role in the outcome of the race.
“But saying that, yesterday was the most amount of [degradation] we’ve seen all season on a Friday. And, you know, for some people it looks like we may need to be a three-stop. But you can nurse those tyres, you know, one and a half seconds, two seconds off the pace, and maybe you can do a one-stop, who knows, but if you do that you might be doing very slow as well.
“So, for sure, we’re not looking in the strongest position ahead of time, but I do think there’s a lot of opportunity with how much [degradation] there is.”
When asked whether the tyre situation had been further complicated by the new surface, Russell replied, “Well, I think you’ve got three-quarters of a track which is probably the smoothest of the season, and the other quarter is the most abrasive of the season, so you’re in two totally different windows. And I think that combination of the two is what’s causing a lot of damage to the tyre.”
He added that he did not think that any team had the level of degradation experienced over the weekend, but said that he expected it to be a different situation during the race itself.
“So, it’s the same for everyone, I don’t think anyone expected this sort of degradation, but I’m sure it’ll be a different story tomorrow.”
