Russell Mercedes struggles questioned: 'Beating around the bush'

Dutch racing driver and F1 pundit Tom Coronel has insisted George Russell's recent struggles cannot be down to Mercedes' major upgrade.

The new package was introduced at the Monaco Grand Prix, with Russell securing a podium alongside teammate Lewis Hamilton at the following race in Spain.

But the British driver has been overshadowed by seven-time champion Hamilton, with a number of minor errors at critical points during race weekends leaving him in a battle to secure positive results.

The gap of 49 points between the duo lay bare Russell's recent struggles - though not disastrous - but speaking on the RacingNews365 podcast [Dutch language], Coronel said: "Russell is very disappointing, what happened there?

"It's not just down to the upgrade, it's also down to the mindset you have with your engineer for what direction you're going with the car.

"You sometimes have those moments when you're just missing the feeling.

"It is not the case that an upgrade works for one person and not the other. That's not possible, because then you start beating around the bush and you can immediately see what the problem is."

Grip is Grip

"Grip is grip," added Coronel.

"So I always find that very strange, that some drivers say, 'yes, I want some understeer or oversteer on the car'.

"If the other [driver] can do it, you can do it too because a car remains a car and grip is grip.

"Only, you and your engineer may have just chosen a direction or set-up that you think feels nice, but somehow it doesn't show on the stopwatch and that's what my gut tells me about Russell.

"It can't be that you lose it in one go. It can't be that you're that much slower all at once. There's no such thing."