Toto Wolff believes George Russell has struggled to get the most out of Mercedes’ W17 this season due to a “difficult” operating window, with the Briton only finishing eighth in last weekend’s United States Grand Prix.
Russell’s difficult 2026 campaign continued in Austin where he was unable to match race winner Kimi Antonelli, who finished 54 seconds clear of his Mercedes team mate during Sunday’s race.
Russell’s race was compromised by serving a five-second penalty during his pit stop due to leaving the track and gaining an advantage, before he became stuck behind Oscar Piastri’s McLaren until the chequered flag.
“George just struggled so much and I believe this is because the operational window of the car is so difficult. In Q2, he was there or thereabouts. Q3 didn’t work – he said that goes on me,” explained Team Principal Wolff on Sunday.
“And today in the race, I don’t know. We got stuck behind Piastri, which looks a bit unfair, why he didn’t get past, it’s the same engine, it’s the same electric charging and deployment.”
Antonelli’s ninth win of the season leaves him on the cusp of becoming the youngest driver to claim the title this weekend in Mexico City, having come to grips with the new-for-2026 regulations.
A new package introduced by Mercedes ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia appears to have also widened the gap between himself and Russell, but Wolff is adamant that Russell is still a potential champion.
“I think the update we put on the car is still difficult to operate, and [Kimi] landed it,” said Wolff.
“We will try to retrace every decision that we took, and correlate with the lack of performance on Friday and then the relative outperformance Saturday and Sunday. But at least the positive news is that the car works. So now it’s about widening the window of operation.
“George, for all of us in the team, is a champion, and has won in every category, and I think he merits to be put in the group of the very best ones, and we’ve seen that last year and this year.
“We see this variability in results. When we land the car in the way that suits him, he’s absolutely fast. But when it drops out of that operational window, he struggles, and he struggles more than maybe Kimi.
“And that is on us. We just have to work it out with him, how there can be such a difference in performance, because George is not half a second slower, three-tenths slower than Kimi. It’s just absolutely not the case.”
