George Russell sends 'mercy' warning to Mercedes

George Russell has cautioned Mercedes that it cannot continue to be "at the mercy of the weather" in F1 this season after a disappointing start to his British Grand Prix weekend.

The embattled four-time grand prix winner was fifth and eighth-fastest across Friday's two practice sessions at his home race, with track temperatures high in FP1 and FP2, but does remain hopeful cooler conditions will prevail for the remainder of the round at Silverstone.

The W16, like its predecessor, struggles in the heat, and Russell was quick to highlight how "frustrating" it is for his performance to be contingent upon the weather.

When asked how close he was to being able to compete with the front runners after the first two hours of running, the 27-year-old zeroed in on what he wants to see Mercedes improve.

"Well, after today, not very close, but it's been a bit warmer today," Russell said. "The track was 40 degrees [Celsius], and I hope the rest of the weekend it cools down.

"So it's a little bit frustrating for us that every single week we are at the mercy of the weather, and we need to improve that, especially now we're entering the summer months. We're doing everything we can to improve it.

"I think our fortunes will turn slightly for the rest of the weekend, and it will come towards us. But as I said, we can't be at the mercy of the weather, and we are right now."

Ferraris and the wet

In FP1, he was adrift of the McLarens and Ferraris, with Max Verstappen and team-mate Kimi Antonelli - and Lance Stroll - also faring better than him in FP2.

The Scuderia were one of the surprises of the day, and the Maranello-based squad's strong pace could relatively affect Mercedes' results over the weekend.

When that was put to him, Russell replied: "Yeah, for sure. Ferrari have really turned it up for the last couple of races.

"They've been strong in race pace all season, really, but they've been having bad qualifying.

"But I think now that we're entering summer, everyone's overheating a little bit more, and we've probably taken a step backwards, and they've taken a step forward purely because of the temperature.

"That's probably not great for them for some reasons, but it's definitely not great for us for other reasons too."

Whilst Russell wants to see the weather turn, for his sake and Mercedes', he is not keen on the idea of a wet race.

"Coldness, definitely [is what we want], he explained. "If it's wet in qualifying, definitely excited for that.

"It's a bit of a unique one, because the wet tyres actually deg [Degredate] more than dry tyres.

"I don't want to get too bogged up in the details here, but actually, a wet race probably wouldn't be ideal. But we just want it nice and... cold and dry would be ideal."