Lewis Hamilton’s former nemesis Nico Rosberg suggested the Briton is the best of all time and if there’s anyone who can beat Mr. Saturday, it’s going to be Lewis. It is true that Hamilton comes back stronger every time he falls. As Hamilton makes a comeback, Mr. Saturday is left perplexed as he finds it too hot to handle. But why is it so? Let’s find out.

George Russell surprised everyone last year when he beat Lewis Hamilton, a 7X World Champion in the teammate battle. It was only Russell’s first season with Mercedes and he scored 35 more points compared to Hamilton, who had a terrible follow-up year compared to the 2021 title-challenging year. Nonetheless, while everyone expected Russell to show up this year with the same fight, it wasn’t the case anymore.

Lewis Hamilton seemed to have stepped up his game. Russell recently suggested that qualifying was his strength at the start of the year. The young Briton is also nicknamed Mr. Saturday due to his wonderful and outstanding qualifying results. However whilst Russell led the teammate battle 4-1 going into the 6th GP, Lewis Hamilton made up huge ground and overtook him. Russell is now 5-7 behind. With the upgrades having no significant impact on the same, Russell is left wondering and in a state of confusion.

According to motorsport-total.com, George Russell said “Qualifying was my strength at the beginning of the season. I felt very comfortable in the first six races. It doesn’t add up. There’s definitely a trend in the set-up direction we’ve been taking since the update. It’s not necessarily related to the update itself, but it’s just a general trend. And I think we got it from the right reasons.”

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Looks like Russell isn’t going to be Mr. Saturday, especially not for this weekend’s GP at Spa Francorchamps. Russell had a very poor qualifying and Sprint qualifying session. Let’s see how it panned out.

George Russell struggles in Qualifying and Sprint Qualifying at Spa Francorchamps 

George Russell will start Sunday’s Belgium GP from P8 on the grid whereas his teammate Lewis Hamilton starts P3 and will be eyeing a podium. We’ve seen how good Mercedes is during the second stage of a race when the fuel load decreases. While Q3 was bad for Russell, SQ3 was worse.

Russell barely scraped through all the Sprint Qualifying sessions. The Briton was P15 in SQ1, P10 in SQ2, and finished last in SQ3. Not a result that Russell would’ve wanted or expected. To top it off, Russell denied Lewis Hamilton to push on the final lap for a pole. 

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What do you think? Has George Russell gone soft? What is the problem?