The relief in the British driver’s voice was plain when he described the moment Mercedes told him the fault was in the car, not in him.

“It is a huge load off my mind, but also while I’m driving, through Silverstone and the majority of Friday and Saturday at Spa, I think about how I needed to drive to make the power unit fast in the straight,” George Russell told reporters ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

For three sessions he had rebuilt his technique around throttle pickup, gear usage and how early he got on the power, all based on data suggesting his own inputs were the problem.

“How I pick up the throttle, the gear usage, how early I am on the throttle, and the data was telling us that this was probably the reason [I was struggling], but it turned out it wasn’t the reason,” Russell said.

Read also: Argentina to fight Paredes' 10-match ban as AFA labels FIFA sanction 'excessive'

“All that effort was kind of for nothing”

“So all of that effort over the course of three sessions, trying to re-optimise my driving around a new technique, was kind of for nothing,” he added.

“If I focus on the simple things, I know that is when I perform at my best, but we’re not in a simplistic sport, so saying let’s just solely focus on the simple things is easier said than done, sometimes.”

The technical fault was more revealing than a straight power loss. Mercedes’ software was deploying electrical energy too early in the lap, using too much of it before the long straights arrived.

At Spa, opening-sector lap times between Russell and team-mate Kimi Antonelli matched, but the imbalance drained Russell’s deployment before it mattered. He qualified more than half a second down and lost power on the Kemmel Straight in the lap-one collision with Lewis Hamilton.

Read also: Infantino's FIFA reign is suddenly at risk

Russell described the diagnosis in blunt terms to Crash.net.

“Effectively, it was numbers on a screen that were not quite calibrated properly,” he said.

Mercedes then rolled out a software recalibration from its Brixworth engine facility ahead of the Hungarian round.

“The main calibration issues that we saw, we hope, and we’re pretty confident, should be fixed here,” Russell said at the Hungaroring.

Read also: MLS punishes Messi after ugly incident – but details of his punishment remain secret

Antonelli sits 59 points clear

Russell trails Antonelli, who took the drivers’ championship lead into the summer break, by 59 points across the opening 11 rounds. Antonelli holds 219 points, Hamilton 169 and Russell 160, and Mercedes still lead the constructors’ championship.

Monza will show whether the fix holds

Neither Hungary nor Zandvoort punish a power unit the way Silverstone and Spa do. The Italian Grand Prix at Monza on 4-6 September, the round after this weekend’s Dutch race, is where Mercedes will find out whether the recalibration truly holds on full-throttle straights.

Russell is still mathematically in the title fight. The Dutch Grand Prix runs at Zandvoort on Sunday, 23 August.

Read also: Infantino under mounting pressure: Six nations send serious joint message

Read also: Salah's fall from Liverpool legend to Trabzonspor: 'A betrayal of his own talent'