George Russell openly discussed his foul-mouthed radio rant after crashing out of the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix, amid a hint that Mercedes has located the cause of the problem that contributed to his race-ending collision.
The Brit was punted off by Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap at Spa-Francorchamps, the incident handing his former teammate a five-second time penalty.
Russell pinpointed a problem with the State of Charge gauge in his W17 upon his exit from it, blasting the team after seeing the chance to close the gap in the title race disappear at the very beginning.
“What the f**k happened with the SoC down the straight?” he angrily asked, adding the “whole weekend” had been “un-f***ing-acceptable”.
Ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Russell was relaxed and quick to address the issue, intimating Mercedes that had been beavering away at its Brackley base to remedy the problem that worked him into a stupor.
“I am feeling good now,” he said. “Three days after Spa, and I think we’ve uncovered some of the issues that were holding us back during the weekend, and that is refreshing to hear, and to see the hard work that has gone on back at the factory to get to the bottom of it.”
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“At the end of the day, we are in this together, and what happened in Spa, we saw signs of it in Silverstone, and it is not to the standard that we want collectively. That is not just me towards the team, and we are in this together.
“Of course, when you have just been punted out of the race, and you’re sat in the gravel trap on Lap 1, your emotions are pretty high, especially with the events that led up to Turn 5, but it is not through a lack of effort in trying to get to the bottom of what we have thought was the issue.
“We were struggling to see the signs of where it was coming from, but Spa gave us a great opportunity of where to look for the problem, and then when the team looked in this area, they uncovered the problem, which was great to see.
“But these cars, these power units are so complex, you can’t check every single, tiny parameter, because there are just so many of them.”
Russell will need to win in Hungary to close the gap in the title race to teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who extended his lead by 25 points in Belgium after taking victory.
With just one race to go until the summer break, it’s imperative for the Briton that he takes full advantage of any opportunity of taking points off his teenage partner to maintain his title credentials.
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