<\/p>\n
Russell finished eighth at the US Grand Prix, 54 seconds behind Mercedes Teammate Kimi Antonelli, who secured a ninth victory of the season.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Russell\u2019s race was affected by a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. Russell later became trapped behind Oscar Piastri\u2019s McLaren until the chequered flag. \u201cGeorge just struggled so much, and I believe this is because the operational window of the car is so difficult,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Russell showed competitive pace during the second qualifying session but struggled in the final session.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff also questioned why Russell had been unable to overtake Piastri despite Mercedes and McLaren using the same engine and electrical deployment systems.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A major upgrade introduced by Mercedes before the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia appears to have widened the performance difference between Russell and Antonelli.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff said the updated package remained difficult to operate, but Antonelli had successfully placed the car within the required performance window. \u201cAt least the positive news is that the car works,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cNow it\u2019s about widening the window of operation.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mercedes will retrace setup and development decisions to understand the car\u2019s limited performance on Friday and stronger pace during the remainder of the weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff rejected suggestions that Russell was inherently slower than Antonelli. \u201cGeorge, for all of us in the team, is a champion and has won in every category,\u201d Wolff said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI think George merits being placed in the group of the very best drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Wolff said Russell remained extremely competitive when the car\u2019s setup matched Russell\u2019s requirements.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
However, Russell appeared to struggle more than Antonelli when the W17 fell outside the optimum operating range. \u201cThat is on us,\u201d Wolff said. \u201cGeorge is not half a second or three-tenths slower than Kimi. That is absolutely not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Antonelli could become the youngest Formula One World Champion at the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–F1\/ChannelAfrica–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37072,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-49253","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff says George Russell remains a potential champion despite struggling to extract consistent performance from the W17 during the 2026 season.","published_date":"","news_description":"Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff says George Russell remains a potential champion despite struggling to extract consistent performance from the W17 during the 2026 season.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49255,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/49253\/revisions\/49255"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=49253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}