George Russell and Kimi Antonelli saw how Ferrari are holding back Lewis Hamilton at Silverstone

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George Russell and Kimi Antonelli both observed Ferrari’s weaknesses during the British Grand Prix weekend.

With Charles Leclerc winning the race and Lewis Hamilton finishing third, Ferrari’s 40-point haul saw them close the gap on Mercedes in the constructors’ championship to 78. More importantly, Hamilton is just 32 behind Antonelli in the drivers’ standings.

But Ferrari know this was a fortunate victory. Antonelli was well on course to overtake Leclerc during Sunday’s race before a broken wheel shield abruptly halted his charge.

Straight-line speed and tyre wear could cost Ferrari the world championship

Speaking in the post-race press conference, Russell highlighted Ferrari’s main problem – straight-line speed. He successfully held off multiple attacks from Hamilton at the start of the second stint, when a five-second penalty demoted the Ferrari driver to fifth.

“With the straight-line speed [advantage] over the Ferraris, I felt I could have held off Lewis,” Russell said.

How has the British Grand Prix changed your outlook on the F1 title race?

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Ferrari’s ADUO-assisted upgrade, introduced at the Austrian GP, does seem to have narrowed the horsepower gap. Without it, it seems unlikely Hamilton would have taken Sprint pole on an ‘energy-poor’, high-speed circuit like Silverstone.

But Mercedes’ superiority was still evident in both races. Whether he was defending against Antonelli in the Sprint or attacking Russell in the Grand Prix, Hamilton had to expend most of his battery, which meant he was ultimately fighting a losing battle.

Ferrari are planning another engine upgrade, the second of the permitted two, at the Dutch GP just after the summer break. As it stands, Hamilton and Leclerc are the clear underdogs in any on-track duel with Mercedes, which is clearly a major problem in the title fight.

This feeds into another problem – tyre wear. Hamilton’s three-stop strategy may have helped him win in Barcelona, but two weeks later in Austria it only highlighted Ferrari’s excessive degradation.

It may be that, because Ferrari are losing time on the straights, they are having to push harder through the corners to make up the time. This, in turn, means they are chewing through their Pirelli rubber.

“In the Sprint we definitely had a faster car, mainly on deg,” Antonelli said on Saturday evening. “We seemed a little bit better with the tyres.”

Indeed, Antonelli went purple on the 17th and final lap of the Sprint as he opened a comfortable lead over Hamilton after his lap-eight overtake.

He was then able to run 10 laps longer than Leclerc in the Grand Prix to create what looked like a race-winning tyre offset.

If both of these interconnected problems persist, it’s hard to see how Ferrari can win the championship, even with Mercedes’ unreliability.