Wolff feeling pain of Russell’s lost points in Mercedes’ F1 title battle

Toto Wolff says it’s not just George Russell within Mercedes who is frustrated by lost points in grands prix as Mercedes is also failing to pull clear in F1's constructors’ championship.

Russell retired on the opening lap of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix after suffering from deployment issues during the weekend and also at the start of the race. That marked the fifth time in the last six races that Mercedes had only scored with one car, and Wolff responded to Russell saying he was “numb” to the disappointment by reiterating the pain it is also causing the team overall.

“You have to understand that a driver is very emotional when these situations happen,” Wolff said. “But on the other side, as a Formula 1 driver, you're part of a very elite group. I think it's quite an honor to drive a Mercedes.

“Sometimes we let ourselves down, and it's not just the driver, but it's also us. It's valuable constructors’ points that we lose in our fight against Ferrari. So I hope the numb feeling goes away. We will try to help to recreate optimism and positivity.”

Wolff explained that the deployment problems Russell was facing meant he had more energy available at the beginning of the lap but less at the end, resulting in a lap time deficit of around 0.25s in qualifying. However, Wolff says the race brought a different issue that hampered all Mercedes cars before contact with Lewis Hamilton took Russell out of the race.

“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," he said. "And sometimes in a new regulation that happens.

“And 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 does make it better for him, and that probably accounted for half the gap, or a little bit more, that he had to Kimi [Antonelli].

“When it comes to [Sunday], all Mercedes engines had a lack of energy out of Turn 1. So that wasn't only George. It affected him more 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. And then, obviously, the accident with Lewis.

“It's unfortunate. We're losing points for him, losing points in the constructors’ championship. And it's like every weekend we have one car that doesn't finish.”