George Russell fighting 'different beast' challenge after puzzling Mercedes issue

George Russell has explained how he and Mercedes are now tackling a "different beast" at the Hungarian GP after his mysterious issues in Belgium.

Throughout the Spa weekend, Russell was complaining of a lack of straight-line speed from his car, with Mercedes believing that a software erorr had been responsble for not leaving him with enough energy over the second-half of the lap - where he lost 0.4s alone to Kimi Antonelli in qualifying. 

Further complicating matters was the energy-starved nature of the Spa circuit, which is in sharp contrast to the energy-rich nature of the Hungaroring with its stop-start nature and multiple heavy braking zones which are used to harvest and re-capture energy. 

In FP1 and FP2, Russell was a little off the pace of the leading Ferraris, but he felt that if the same issues were at play in Budapest, it would only be 10% of the impact owing to the "different beast" track. 

"I didn't really look at it to be honest, because I just trusted in the team that everything has been resolved," Russell began.

"Even if we had the exact same issue as last week, the difference would have probably been 10% of what we saw last week, just because of the nature of the circuit. 

"This weekend is a totally different beast, and these power units are pretty impressive on this track, having 350kw out of all of the corners, and the rear tyres getting blasted around the lap. 

"We've got work to do as a team, and for both Kimi and me, the car was far from great to be honest.

"We think there is room to improve; it was really windy, and the wind will shift [direction from Friday to Saturday], so that is going to change a lot."