Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has shot down speculation that the team held a “crisis meeting” following a disappointing outing at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, insisting that routine internal reviews were misrepresented by media reports.
Rumors swirled after George Russell alluded to a “big meeting” taking place at the team’s Brackley headquarters in the aftermath of Spa, where Mercedes appeared to take a step backward in performance..
However, speaking on Friday in Budapest ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, Wolff was quick to dismiss the “nonsense” reports relayed by the media.
“That’s always such nonsense – this talk of a ‘crisis meeting,’” Wolff told Sky Sports F1 Germany.
“We have meetings every week to assess where the car stands and what we can improve. And one of those meetings was last week, exactly as planned, with the drivers.
“We do that regularly, every few months. That was the ‘big’ meeting. And it was very interesting.”
Russell: “My comments were exaggerated a bit”
Russell, who finished fifth in Belgium and last won in Canada earlier this season, also clarified his comments during the lead-up to this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.
He acknowledged that while Mercedes is seeking answers for a recent dip in form, the meeting he referenced was long-scheduled and not reactionary.
“I think my comments about a big meeting were probably exaggerated a bit because we talk monthly with everyone back at the factory,” Russell said.
“We talk, obviously, weekly with the people who are here on the race-team side of things, so it’s nothing abnormal.”
The Briton admitted that the team is actively investigating why performance has slipped since the early summer rounds, with potential factors including recent updates and changing track conditions.
“That meeting was actually planned probably three or four weeks ago, just as all of these meetings are,” the Briton added.
“But clearly our performance as a team has gone backwards in the last six or seven races, and we’re trying to unpick why that may have been.”
“Back to Basics” Approach Moving Forward
Russell highlighted that Mercedes’ struggles arelikely rooted in subtle setup or development missteps in recent updates, as well as in the team’s persistent difficulty performing in hotter conditions.
“I think there’s a number of factors at play. Obviously, we struggle a bit in the hotter conditions – Spa wasn’t hot, but generally we struggle in the hotter conditions,” he said.
“We’re now in summer; start of the season was spring, and we brought some little things with updates, and we think that may not have been performing as we hoped.
“So we’ll revert back on some small items. I think we’ve potentially just lost our way slightly and are just going to go back to basics, focus on the main parts of the car and see where that takes us.”
Despite recent setbacks, both Wolff and Russell project calm and methodical resolve – far from the “crisis” narrative circulating in headlines.
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