In the opening five rounds, Russell led 💧Hamilton 4🔜-1 in the qualifying head-to-head, while it was 2-2 on race day.

Since Monaco, Hamilton has only been out-qualified by Russell 𝐆on one occasion, while the Austrian Grand Prix was the onl🎃y time he finished behind (due to a penalty for track limits).

It’s been a remarkable shift in momentum at Mercedes, particularly as Russell managed to out-score H🎉amilton points-wise in the championship.

Speaking after Friday practice at the , Wolff ex💯plained why he doesn’t want to assess Russell’s struggles until after Singapore.

“I think we must wait to [see] how this pans out and we have more data points,” he told Sky. “This race and Monza, maybe Singapore, three totally different tracks and see whether there was♓ a shift because of the update we introduced.”

Russell struggled again for one-lap pace relative to Hamilton in FP2, nearly four-tenths ෴🎉between the two Brits.

“I think on the first run this afternoon with the harder compound, the medium♛ they used, he [Russell] was very competitive and then putting on the soft it wasn’t any more,” Wolff added. “I wouldn’t make too much of this today. I think tomorrow we will see.”

Wolff𒅌 al🦹so revealed Mercedes are putting greater “emphasis on the race” rather than their qualifying performance.

“We made a big improvement from Friday to Saturday last year which we’re not 100 per cent sure we understand yet but the car was competitive,” he explained🦋.

“I th🥃ink putting an emphasis on the race, like we did now, makes more sense than𒉰 just chasing the pole position.”