George Russell has bemoaned the "perfect storm" which gave Mercedes no chance of fighting for Austrian Grand Prix victory.
Fresh from a dominant win in Canada, Mercedes was on the backfoot in Austria as its troubles in high temperatures were on display during the Austrian GP, where track temperatures hit over 50 degrees Celsius.
After initially fighting Lewis Hamilton at the start, Russell fell into a lonely race battling the increased tyre wear that affects Mercedes in hotter conditions, eventually coming home 62 seconds behind race-winner Lando Norris, and 5.4s ahead of the one-stopping Racing Bulls machine of Liam Lawson.
Reflecting on the tough afternoon, Russell explained how it was actually "worse" than he could have imagined pre-race.
"This wasn't great, and I was expecting a bad race, but it was worse than I could even have imagined," Russell told media, including RacingNews365.
"The problem is so clear coming off the back of Canada with the win and no tyre overheating, we were the quickest, but as soon as you get to a track with a bit of overheating, we drop off so much.
"The team have been working on this for six months now to solve this issue, we've got ideas, but nothing is making major headway right now.
"For sure, it was damage limitation, but I still take pride in the fact that at almost every race this year, we're maximising the result, we could not have achieved higher than P5.
"This was a perfect storm.
"The tarmac is one of the roughest of the season. It is a high-speed circuit where you're going around the track many times, with 50 degrees track temperature, it was a perfect storm."
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