30/06/2025 16:25
George Russell has bemoaned the "perfect storm" which gave Mercedes
no chance of fighting for Austrian Grand Prix victory. Fresh from a
dominant win in Canada, Mercedes was on the backfoot in Austria as
its troubles in high temperatures were on display during the
Austrian GP, where track temperatures hit over 50 degrees Celsius.
After initially fighting Lewis Hamilton at the start, Russell fell
into a lonely race battling the increased tyre wear that affects
Mercedes in hotter conditions, eventually coming home 62 seconds
behind race-winner Lando Norris, and 5.4s ahead of the one-stopping
Racing Bulls machine of Liam Lawson. Reflecting on the tough
afternoon, Russell explained how it was actually "worse" than he
could have imagined pre-race. "This wasn't great, and I was
expecting a bad race, but it was worse than I could even have
imagined," Russell told media, including RacingNews365. "The
problem is so clear coming off the back of Canada with the win and
no tyre overheating, we were the quickest, but as soon as you get
to a track with a bit of overheating, we drop off so much. "The
team have been working on this for six months now to solve this
issue, we've got ideas, but nothing is making major headway right
now. "For sure, it was damage limitation, but I still take pride
in the fact that at almost every race this year, we're maximising
the result, we could not have achieved higher than P5. "This was a
perfect storm. "The tarmac is one of the roughest of the season.
It is a high-speed circuit where you're going around the track many
times, with 50 degrees track temperature, it was a perfect storm."
