George Russell addresses expletive-Mercedes rant as key discovery made

George Russell has addressed his expletive-laden rant after his Belgian GP elimination, as he confirmed that Mercedes had made a key discovering over the issues affecting him. 

Throughout the Spa weekend, Russell was complaining of a lack of straight-line speed from the W17 machine, and lost four-tenths of a second alone to Kimi Antonelli in the final sector of the lap as he qualified 0.508s slower. 

Russell had reported similar issues at Silverstone, with the Spa issues now being traced back to his power unit algorithms being 'front-loaded' around the 7.004km Belgian circuit, meaning he had more power on the run to Les Combes than through Blanchimont and the Bus Stop Chicane. 

In the race itself, Russell was primed to attack front-row pair Antonelli and Max Verstappen out of Turn 1, but an unlinked and unexplained loss of power on the run to Eau Rouge and up Raidillon left him exposed to attack from behind - and was swallowed up by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton. 

At Les Combes, as he attempted to move around the outside of Hamilton, the two collided, with Russell being spat into the gravel, where the car became beached and he was eliminated as Antonelli opened up a 50 point lead over the Briton with his sixth win of the season. 

Whilst he was sat in the gravel, Russell unleashed an expletive-laden rant over the radio, branding the issue on the opening lap as "unacceptable", with a number of f-bombs dropped. It was not broadcast on the world feed, and only came to light after a German broadcaster showed a replay. 

Addressing that rant, Russell explained how his emotions were "running high" after the Hamilton collision, and detailed how a key discovery about what had happened had been made by the team. 

"I am feeling good now, three days after Spa, and I think we've uncovered some of the issues that were holding us back during the weekend, and that is refreshing to hear, and to see the hard work that has gone on back at the factory to get to the bottom of it," Russell told media, including RacingNews365. 

"At the end of the day, we are in this together, and what happened in Spa, we saw signs of it in Silverstone, and it is not to the standard that we want collectively; that is not just me towards the team, and we are in this together. 

"Of course, when you have just been punted out of the race, and you're sat in the gravel trap on Lap 1, your emotions are pretty high, especially with the events that led up to Turn 5, but it is not through a lack of effort in trying to get to the bottom of what we have thought was the issue. 

"We were struggling to see the signs of where it was coming from, but Spa gave us a great opportunity of where to look for the problem, and then when the team looked in this area, they uncovered the problem, which was great to see.

"But these cars, these power units are so complex, you can't check every single, tiny parameter, because there are just so many of them."