Toto Wolff has discussed the issues George Russell was up against throughout the 2026 F1 Belgian GP weekend as the Brit lost valuable points in the Drivers’ Championship to his Mercedes teammate and the Ferraris.
Throughout the weekend, a deployment issue in the final sector was costing him around 0.250s. While this would not have put him on the same level as Kimi Antonelli, it meant he missed out on the front row. After a grid penalty for Lando Norris, he was P3 on the grid.
Off the line, things looked okay for car #63. However, it quickly became apparent something was amiss out of turn 1. He was immediately down on power. While he held P3 through the Eau Rouge and Raidillon section, Leclerc and Hamilton blasted past on the Kemmel straight, and Oscar Piastri almost did as well.
While the 28-year-old braked late and tried to go around the outside of car #44, the Ferrari man tagged him into a spin and he got stuck in the gravel.
Russell was fuming on the radio after his DNF: “I’m out, what the fuck happened with the SOC [state of charge] down the straight. I had no fucking battery down the straight. Guys, unacceptable. Un-fucking acceptable this whole weekend”.
Toto Wolff on the complexity of the Power Units in 2026 and the issues George Russell had during the F1 Belgian GP weekend
At Silverstone, George Russell already faced a straight-line deficit to his teammate. Despite that, he salvaged a P2 to put himself back in the title fight at 25 points behind Kimi Antonelli.
However, it all went wrong yesterday as the deployment issues he had put him in a spot on lap 1 that meant an incident was possible.
Speaking in a print media session after the race, Toto Wolff explained what was happening with George Russell’s car through the 2026 F1 Belgian GP weekend.
“The Power Units are so complex, in the way you harvest, the way you deploy, the interaction from the driver.
“We have a super strong package, championship winning chassis and power unit but we’re still trying to give it our best to fix the reliability issue.
“And sometimes, you know, in new regulations that happens. With George over the weekend there was definitely something on the engine that we have identified that meant he only had less energy to deploy into turn 18. That was the most visible.
“It’s good that we spotted it here because in Budapest which is not energy starved, it would have been more difficult to identify.
“But it still doesn’t make it better for him. That probably accounted for half the gap that or a little bit more that he had to Kimi.”
Problems for all Mercedes-powered cars, says Wolff
The Austrian then revealed all eight cars with Mercedes PUs had varying levels of issues at the start. Pierre Gasly said he had “no power” post-race when talking about his day.
For the fifth time in six Grands Prix, one of the Mercedes drivers failed to score. Unreliability has been a nagging headache for the Brackley-based team.
“And when it comes to today, all Mercedes engines had a lack of energy out of turn one. So that wasn’t only George.
“It affected him more than than Kimi but also Kimi had that issue to a certain degree. And that meant that he didn’t come out at the end of the straight in P3 but what was it P5 so he lost his two positions. Then obviously the accident with Lewis.
“And it’s unfortunate for losing points for him, losing points in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s like every weekend we have one car that doesn’t finish.”
Pushed on whether Verstappen passing Antonelli heading to Eau Rouge was because of a deployment issues, Wolff was unsure.
“I don’t know. So Kimi definitely had it.
“I didn’t speak to him yet whether that was a clever move and letting Max pass or whether it was the issue.”
Fresh gremlins for George Russell
Asked whether the problem for car #63 on lap 1 of the 2026 F1 Belgian GP was a different issue to what was happening at Blanchimont through the weekend for George Russell, Toto Wolff confirmed it was.
“Completely new thing. It was something that we wouldn’t have identified on simulator either because you need to look for it. It was a new issue.”
Expanding on the energy situation that had plagued the British driver through practice and qualifying, Wolff said Russell’s PU had more energy in Sector 1 and less in Sector 3 compared to Antonelli, leaving him a quarter of a second down all weekend.
“The impact was that he had more energy available at the beginning of the lap and then less energy at the end of the lap.
“But in terms of optimisation, it was a deficit. We believe that the deficit was about two or two and a half tenths, let’s say in qualifying modes, much less on the long runs.”
Following the 2026 F1 Belgian GP, George Russell is 3rd in points, 50 behind teammate Kimi Antonelli.
