Toto Wolff says ‘it’s quite an honour to drive a Mercedes’ amid George Russell anger

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Toto Wolff says George Russell was feeling ‘very emotional’ after a potentially season-defining retirement at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Russell has fallen 50 points behind Mercedes teammate and championship leader Kimi Antonelli, who won Sunday’s race at Spa.

Had the Briton even maintained his starting position of P3, the gap would be a more manageable 35. But he was overtaken by three cars on the Kemmel Straight and suffered a race-ending collision with Lewis Hamilton as he tried to regain ground.

Is George Russell fighting with one hand behind his back, or is Kimi Antonelli just too good?

Antonelli extends his lead in the standings to 44 points after Spa!

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Toto Wolff plans to ‘motivate’ George Russell after Spa nadir

Russell revealed in the media pen that he had ‘zero percent’ battery before the straight, with Wolff confirming that all Mercedes-powered cars were affected by a glitch at the start.

The British driver was ‘angry’ that the issue put him in a ‘dangerous position’ (via BBC Sport). In an unbroadcast radio message, a furious Russell demanded answers from his team.

Wolff acknowledged that Mercedes had let themselves down but said he would try to ‘motivate’ Russell before the next race in Hungary.

“You have to understand that the driver is very emotional when these situations happen,” he said. “But on the other side as a Formula 1 driver, you are part of a very elite group.”

“It’s quite an honour to drive a Mercedes. Sometimes we let ourselves down and it’s not just the driver but it’s also us. It’s valuable constructor points that we lose in our fight against Ferrari.

• READ MORE: Damon Hill says something ‘weird’ is going on with George Russell and Mercedes

He added: “All of the drivers, at least the ones that I have worked with, when they have different difficult spells and it happens to any sports person, you need to find a way of motivating or building up and George has his way and I’m definitely trying to do that.

“I’ve known him for such a long time, I understand the frustrations and the team is 100% behind him.”

Mercedes have won eight of the first 10 races this year, but Russell will feel he has lost at least 40 points through unreliability (having previously retired from the lead in Canada). Antonelli dropped a similar amount in Barcelona and Great Britain.

Russell feels he hasn’t had the ‘same car’ as Antonelli at recent races, pointing to a disparity in straight-line speed. Mercedes are investigating the issue to find the root cause.