George Russell says he will go into Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix “handcuffed” after a small set-up change that ruined his qualifying performance.
The World Championship leader will start second on the Suzuka grid after finishing almost three tenths of a second behind Mercedes team-mate Kimi Antonelli, who took pole on Saturday.
Mercedes had looked closely matched across the weekend, but a tweak to the rear of Russell’s car after final practice left him on the back foot in qualifying. Russell said the adjustment was meant to be “tiny” and “transparent”, but when he went out it felt as if something was broken at the rear.
“It didn’t improve, I just had to adjust my driving style a lot,” he explained. “I had to remove a huge amount of front wing to compensate, because it was almost like I was spinning off on the entries of the corners. The last corner, I couldn’t get round, I was almost spinning in that corner. It’s really annoying. I don’t know what happened.”
With the season only at its third round, Russell emphasised the learning curve teams face with the 2026 cars, which have new power units and chassis. “The reason we changed it was just balancing the car out. I don’t want to get too much into details, but it was only a very small change. We’re still new to this car, so either it has a much bigger impact than we realise, or we did something wrong, or something’s broken. And unfortunately, we’re a little bit handcuffed now.”
Mercedes’ strong early-season pace ensured Russell still made the front row, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri just half a tenth behind in third. Russell noted this follows a similar setback in China, where a technical problem cost him in Q3 and allowed Antonelli to win, narrowing Russell’s championship lead to four points. “That’s two weekends in a row we’ve had… in China we were obviously quick throughout and just got unlucky in Q3, here was odd,” he added.
Team principal Toto Wolff confirmed he expects the set-up issue to remain a disadvantage during the race. “We did a set-up tweak on the other (Russell’s) side (of the garage),” Wolff said. “Something we expected to have less impact than it had, and it put the car on the nose, so too much oversteer and that made it very difficult for him. He needs to carry this into the race now, which is certainly a disadvantage, but these things happen.”
Despite his pole position, Antonelli sees Russell as his chief threat. “My team-mate, myself! I’m not going to worry too much about it,” Antonelli told Sky Sports F1. “I’m just going to focus on what I have to do, try to get the procedure right, a good start without overdoing it. Hopefully I will be P1 into Turn 1, then we can make the best use of the free air to set the pace.”
Antonelli also expects the 2026 cars to open up more overtaking opportunities than in the past because of easier following and the overtake mode’s battery harvesting and deployment, but he warned Suzuka will still be challenging. “I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as China and Melbourne because the track is quite a bit tighter and you don’t have as many straights where you can overtake,” he said. “You have a lot of fast entries, so it’s not going to be easy, but that’s why it’s crucial to have a good start and then we’ll see from there how the pace is going to be.”