Mercedes Pinpoints Russell's Improvement Areas After Belgian GP Practice Struggles

George Russell ended Friday practice at Spa-Francorchamps on the back foot, finishing eighth in FP2 while Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli set the pace with a 1m45.944s. The Briton found himself over 1.2 seconds adrift, with the team tracing the deficit to tyre preparation, a compromised run through Les Combes, and the lingering effects of a misguided FP1 setup.

Why it matters:

Russell has trimmed Antonelli's championship lead down to 25 points, but he cannot afford to surrender more ground on raw pace. Friday's data also underscored how punishing the 2026 power unit regulations are at high-speed circuits like Spa, where a single tentative corner bleeds directly into lost deployment on the long straights that follow.

The details:

• GPS and onboard footage showed Russell backed off the throttle exiting Turn 7 at Les Combes, unlike Antonelli. That hesitation carried a compound effect; while the pair matched speeds through the Fagnes S section, Russell's energy reserves depleted sooner on the subsequent straights, leaving him with a lower top speed between Blanchimont and the Bus Stop chicane.
• Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said Russell's tyres were outside the ideal window at the start of the lap, and he underestimated the available grip after a difficult FP1 in which both Mercedes drivers took the wrong setup direction.
• Russell's morning was further disrupted by a faulty homologated fuel flow meter that left him down on power compared to Antonelli. Mercedes swapped the unit before FP2, but the lost track time left Russell chasing his tail for much of the day.
• Antonelli still felt his headline lap was not perfect, suggesting Mercedes has more pace in hand once it fine-tunes the balance for qualifying.

What's next:

With the hardware issue resolved and the car repositioned between sessions, Mercedes is confident Russell can erase the deficit for qualifying. Shovlin noted that the data clearly shows where the time is being lost, and while the midfield looks tight on long-run pace, he fully expects Russell to be back in the mix when Saturday's session begins.