George Russell left “scratching my head” after 'odd' Dutch GP slide

George Russell says he is left “scratching his head” after an “odd” slide in the F1 Dutch Grand Prix.

Russell qualified fourth at Zandvoort and jumped ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri at the start to run third, but he eventually slipped to seventh after making an extra pit stop - a gamble which ultimately did not come off.

Recovering teammate Lewis Hamilton finished a few seconds behind in eighth but Russell was left puzzled by Mercedes’ drop-off in performance.

“I don't really understand what has happened, in all honesty,” he told Sky.

“We were slow on all three tyres and was just going backwards. I don’t really know. It was weird how we qualified fourth and were consistently just behind the three cars in front and well ahead of the Ferrari and today it just all disappeared.

"It just felt like it had no grip, it felt like I was just sliding around. Like I was on ice. Something to do with the tyres and we definitely got something wrong somewhere, but right now I am scratching my head a little bit to know why.”

Russell believes Mercedes’ lack of competitiveness at Zandvoort is just an “outlier” and hopes it will not become a trend.

“We’ve been there for the last six races,” he added. “This is definitely an outlier. Performance does swing circuit to circuit but this does seem a little bit odd.

“It’s strange how we can win three of the past four, and be fighting in Montreal and all of these places, and then suddenly finish 50s behind the win today. So we need to look into it. Today was a really odd one.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff described his team’s performance at the Dutch Grand Prix as “very bruising”.

“In the last race weekend you finish first and second, and then seventh and eighth, we clearly got one junction or more junctions wrong in how the car was running,” he told the official F1 channel.

“It’s very bruising but sometimes you need the bruises in order to make a big step again.”