Is Mercedes Conspiring Against Its Own Driver? (No.)

And let the conspiracy theories begin.

George Russell had spent the past three race weekends painstakingly narrowing the gap to his wunderkind Mercedes teammate in the Drivers Championship standings.

Luck, for once, fell in his favor.

And then on Sunday, at the Belgian Grand Prix, Russell https://defector.com/how-george-russell-almost-stole-the-belgian-grand-prix" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">yet again had a hellish day.

With luck a tired nemesis, it fell upon spectators to find another cosmic horror to blame.

Such as: Mercedes boss Toto Wolff.

Here are some factual observations.

Russell, who started third on the grid, had a relatively poor start off the line, and was swarmed by both Ferrari drivers from behind.

While Russell managed to cling to his position through the first corner, his engine struggled to deploy energy on the Kemmel Straight, leaving him a sitting duck.

First, Charles Leclerc zipped by.

Then, Lewis Hamilton stayed on the inside of Russell through the next corner, washed slightly wide, and spun Russell out of the race.

Russell was far angrier about the lack of straight-line power than the collision. "I had no fucking battery down the straight!" he https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyb86glvROw" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">yelled on the radio after literally crashing out.

Over the course of the past three race weekends, Russell had managed to close the gap by 25 points.

After less than one lap of racing, all of that progress had been undone.

That collision with Hamilton helps demonstrate why it is easy to theorize in F1.

Though Hamilton was on cold tires during the first lap of the race and left plenty of room for Russell—and both Russell and commentator Jolyon Palmer dubbed the collision a racing incident—Hamilton was saddled with a harsh five-second penalty.

Meanwhile on lap eight, Hamilton's teammate, Leclerc, took the liberty of trying to squeeze the McLaren of Oscar Piastri off the race track and just bumped into the side of him, and somehow went entirely unpenalized.