Toto Wolff Takes Blame for George Russell's Struggles

Toto Wolff has responded to the difficulties George Russell is facing in the 2026 season. The Mercedes director, far from blaming the driver, has taken responsibility for Russell's inability to find the W17's operating window, a car that, in the Austrian's words, is extremely difficult to manage. The Briton finished eighth at the United States Grand Prix, 54 seconds behind his teammate and virtual champion, Kimi Antonelli, and his performance has been far below expectations throughout the year.

"George simply struggled a huge amount, and I think this is because the car's operating window is very difficult. In Q2, he was there, or thereabouts; Q3 didn't work; he said That's my fault, and today in the race, I don't know. We got stuck behind Piastri which seems a little unfair, why he couldn't pass, it's the same engine, it's the same electrical charge and deployment" Wolff explained after the race in Austin.

The Mercedes director acknowledged that the update introduced at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia has widened the gap between Antonelli and Russell but insisted that the Briton remains a top-level driver: "I think the update we put on the car is still difficult to operate and Kimi landed on it. We will try to go over every decision we made and correlate it with the lack of performance on Friday and then with the higher relative performance on Saturday and Sunday, but at least the positive news is that the car works, so now it's about widening the operating window," Wolff noted.

The Austrian was blunt in defending Russell: "George, for all of us on the team, is a champion and has won in every category. I think he deserves to be in the group of the best, and we saw that last year and this year. We see this variability in the results: when we take the car the way that suits him, he is absolutely fast, but when he goes outside that operating window, he struggles and struggles more than perhaps Kimi, and that is our fault. We just have to work it with him; how there can be such a difference in performance because George is not half a second slower, three tenths slower than Kimi, that's simply not the case," he stated.

Wolff also referred to the incident that complicated Russell's race, a five-second penalty for going off track and gaining an advantage: "We got stuck behind Piastri, which seems a little unfair. It's the same engine, the same electrical charge and deployment, but in the end, we couldn't find the way to overtake him," he added.

Mercedes faces the last races of the season with the need to understand why Russell cannot extract the same performance as Antonelli, the difference between both drivers has been one of the big themes of the year and Wolff is aware that the team must find answers: "We have to work on it with him, George is a champion and deserves to be in the fight. Our objective is to give him a car that adapts to his style and allows him to show all his potential; that is what we are trying to do," the Mercedes director concluded.

Russell's future in the team depends, in part, on Mercedes widening the operating window he finds so difficult to find.