05/07/2025 09:40
George Russell has cautioned Mercedes that it cannot continue to be
"at the mercy of the weather" in F1 this season after a
disappointing start to his British Grand Prix weekend. The
embattled four-time grand prix winner was fifth and eighth-fastest
across Friday's two practice sessions at his home race, with track
temperatures high in FP1 and FP2, but does remain hopeful cooler
conditions will prevail for the remainder of the round at
Silverstone. The W16, like its predecessor, struggles in the heat,
and Russell was quick to highlight how "frustrating" it is for his
performance to be contingent upon the weather. When asked how close
he was to being able to compete with the front runners after the
first two hours of running, the 27-year-old zeroed in on what he
wants to see Mercedes improve. "Well, after today, not very close,
but it's been a bit warmer today," Russell said. "The track was 40
degrees [Celsius], and I hope the rest of the weekend it cools
down. "So it's a little bit frustrating for us that every single
week we are at the mercy of the weather, and we need to improve
that, especially now we're entering the summer months. We're doing
everything we can to improve it. "I think our fortunes will turn
slightly for the rest of the weekend, and it will come towards us.
But as I said, we can't be at the mercy of the weather, and we are
right now." Ferraris and the wet In FP1, he was adrift of the
McLarens and Ferraris, with Max Verstappen and team-mate Kimi
Antonelli - and Lance Stroll - also faring better than him in FP2.
The Scuderia were one of the surprises of the day, and the
Maranello-based squad's strong pace could relatively affect
Mercedes' results over the weekend. When that was put to him,
Russell replied: "Yeah, for sure. Ferrari have really turned it up
for the last couple of races. "They've been strong in race pace all
season, really, but they've been having bad qualifying. "But I
think now that we're entering summer, everyone's overheating a
little bit more, and we've probably taken a step backwards, and
they've taken a step forward purely because of the temperature.
"That's probably not great for them for some reasons, but it's
definitely not great for us for other reasons too." Whilst Russell
wants to see the weather turn, for his sake and Mercedes', he is
not keen on the idea of a wet race. "Coldness, definitely [is what
we want], he explained. "If it's wet in qualifying, definitely
excited for that. "It's a bit of a unique one, because the wet
tyres actually deg [Degredate] more than dry tyres. "I don't want
to get too bogged up in the details here, but actually, a wet race
probably wouldn't be ideal. But we just want it nice and... cold
and dry would be ideal."
