Wolff put it in blunt terms after Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix.

“You can see the pace he had towards the end when he was catching Leclerc. You know that he was fastest out on track but after the tyre changes, the pace wasn’t there and I just don’t know where it is,” Wolff said.

Russell qualified sixth and finished fifth, 29.829 seconds behind his teammate. Antonelli cycled through to the net lead after a cheap pit stop under a lap 14 virtual safety car and inherited the actual lead once Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari pitted, securing his eighth win of the season.

‘Clearly it’s in him’

Mercedes bosses rarely question their own drivers in public. Wolff opened the door to that conversation while defending Russell’s record.

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“We’re talking about the driver that has won everything that you could have potentially won before. Every single karting championship, Formula 3 in his rookie year, Formula 2 in his rookie year,” Wolff said.

“We have to analyse it because clearly it’s in him, it’s in the car and we just have to unlock it.”

He also acknowledged there is a mental side to the slump.

“We need to find out what it is for him to be able to unleash that potential, and of course there’s the psychological side.”

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Russell concedes the drivers’ title

Russell had already drawn his own conclusion.

“Realistically, I’m not in the fight for the drivers’,” Russell told reporters after the race.

He shifted his focus to the constructors’ championship, where Mercedes now lead Ferrari by 145 points.

“We’re obviously in a great place to win the Constructors’.”

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Russell had questioned Mercedes’ two-stop plan on the radio during the race, then accepted the reasoning afterwards.

“In the moment I was questioning, but the hard tyre was the superior tyre.”

Title mathematically alive

Madrid was Round 16 of the 23-race 2026 season, leaving seven rounds still to run, so the drivers’ title is not yet mathematically decided.

Wolff is willing to look past this year.

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“If you have a run like him this year you’re taking a beating but the great ones, they recover and I think that George has all he needs to fight for championships.”

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