‘Clearly it’s in him’ – Wolff on the challenge of unlocking Russell’s potential

Toto Wolff has explained how Mercedes need to work with George Russell to "unleash his potential” after he endured another setback in the title fight in Madrid, with team mate Kimi Antonelli outscoring him once again.

Russell was open about his struggles with tyre degradation over the weekend at the new circuit, which contributed to him missing out on the fight for pole position and settling for sixth place in Qualifying.

From there, the team executed a two-stop strategy to switch the Briton onto medium tyres under the Virtual Safety Car, and back to a second set of hards later in the race. Russell questioned the decision at first, but later admitted that it didn’t significantly impact his final result of P5.

Although he finished close behind Charles Leclerc, there was a gap of nearly 30s to race winner Antonelli, who has subsequently increased his lead over Russell to 81 points in the Drivers’ Championship.

“You can see the pace he had towards the end when he was catching Leclerc,” Wolff said. “You know that he was fastest out on track but after the tyre changes, the pace wasn't there and I just don't know where it is. We have to analyse it because clearly it's in him, it's in the car and we just have to unlock it.

“When it comes to George, you can have good races, bad races, good years and bad years, but we're talking about the driver that has won everything that you could have potentially won before.

“Every single karting championship, Formula 3 in his rookie year, Formula 2 in his rookie year, went into the Williams. I mean, we're talking about a top driver.

“We need to find out what it is for him to be able to unleash that potential, and of course there's the psychological side. If you have a run like him this year you're taking a beating but the great ones, they recover and I think that George has all he needs to fight for championships.”

With Antonelli’s significant advantage over Russell and rivals like Lewis Hamilton, who now sits 101 points adrift following his retirement from the Spanish Grand Prix, Mercedes are in a comfortable position heading into the remaining rounds.

Russell effectively ruled himself out of the championship battle after Sunday’s result, but Wolff was adamant that the situation can change at any given moment, especially with nine rounds to go.

“It's a mechanical sport,” the Team Principal explained. “You can DNF, you can crash out and it happens two times in a row and then suddenly what looked like a nice buffer is not anymore because you have six races to go.

“So in my opinion, we just need to ignore the points until it is mathematically not realistic anymore, or not real anymore for them to win, and until then just concentrate on each and every weekend, try to bring your best game.

“2027 [development] started a while ago already, long before the summer. We switched resources into the next year and that continues as per the plan, independent of where we're standing in the championship.”