George Russell issues 'truly-deserved' Mercedes revelation

George Russell has claimed only two of the four podiums he achieved in the opening six rounds of the F1 season were "truly deserved" on merit.

The Mercedes driver started the campaign in imperious fashion, and whilst the performance of the W16 cratered, he maintained his strong form and is widely considered to be one of the stars of the season so far.

However, he 27-year-old believes the cards were also falling favourably for the Brackley-based squad early in the year.

At the summer break, Russell is fourth in the F1 drivers' standings on 172 points, and was able to continue consistently scoring even as Mercedes' pace fell away, something rookie team-mate Kimi Antonelli could not.

The issue for the eight-time constructors' champions was twofold. First, the rear suspension upgrade that was introduced at Imola unsettled the car, causing it to become less stable and, as a consequence, cost its two drivers confidence.

Second, Mercedes has seldom been able to create a car that thrives in hotter conditions throughout the contemporary ground effects era of F1, so as climates got warmer as F1 headed into its summer, the W16 started to struggle more.

Save for the outlier result at the Canadian Grand Prix, where Russell won and Antonelli picked up his maiden podium, it was not until the team rowed back on its Imola-spec upgrade that its drivers returned to the rostrum and the points-paying places, respectively.

Having secured his sixth top-three finish of the season at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Russell reflected on how Mercedes' ill-fated update was not the only issue hindering the team over the first part of the year.

"Clearly there was a bit of a mishap in that, and something not working as we anticipated," the four-time grand prix winner told Motorsport.com.

"We clearly have struggled in hot races. At the start of the year, we were in spring, and now we're in summer; that's another factor.

"I think everything was just sort of going our way at the start of the year, to be honest."

Looking back at the good fortune he was afforded early in the year to claim his first four podiums, Russell assessed that only his results in China and Bahrain were undeniably of his and Mercedes' own volition.

"I had four podiums in the first six, but probably only two of them were truly deserved, I would say," he added.

"Obviously, Melbourne was [Oscar] Piastri going off. In Miami, we had the VSC playing into our hands.

"Then the China P3 was a fair result, and Bahrain was a great result. That was the best race of the year, probably, except Canada."