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Russell explains why he lost his pace from the Zandvoort sprint in the race George Russell admitted Mercedes faced a significantly tougher challenge in the Dutch Grand Prix than during Saturday’s Sprint, despite the Briton recovering to finish on the podium at Zandvoort. Russell had looked particularly strong during the Sprint, taking victory ahead of Charles Leclerc, but Mercedes struggled to maintain the same level of performance over the full Grand Prix distance. The Briton ultimately finished third, holding off Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton during the closing stages after a late-race Virtual Safety Car changed the strategic picture. Asked how difficult it had been to keep Hamilton behind him, Russell admitted the final laps were particularly demanding. The first Virtual Safety Car had arrived at an awkward moment for Russell, who felt he had been particularly strong on the Hard tyres. “Yeah, it was tough,” Russell said. “I felt really strong on the hard,” he explained. Mercedes’ two drivers experienced very different tyre performance during the race. Russell struggled with the Medium compound, while team-mate Kimi Antonelli was much stronger during the opening stint. “I think Kimi’s and my race was kind of the opposite. I had a tough medium stint, he had a very strong medium stint, then I had a strong hard stint, he was struggling.” The Virtual Safety Car then significantly altered Russell’s race. From that point, Russell knew Hamilton would be a serious threat for the final podium position. “But that VSC gave Lewis the free pit stop and obviously Kimi pitted as well,” Russell explained. “And from there on in, I knew I was going to be under threat,” he said. Russell nevertheless managed to exploit one of the Mercedes' strengths around Zandvoort, using his performance in the high-speed sections to maintain enough of a gap and defend into the first corner. He was satisfied with how he managed the pressure and ultimately secured third place. “I was managing enough in the high-speed corners to allow me to be fast in Sector 3 and defending into Turn 1,” Russell said. “But I was pleased with that performance,” he added. However, Russell acknowledged that Mercedes' overall performance over the Dutch Grand Prix weekend had been less convincing than its Sprint victory suggested. The team had now endured several challenging weekends, while McLaren had emerged as an increasingly formidable rival. “As Kimi said, it’s been a challenging couple of weekends now for us as a team,” Russell admitted. “McLaren are mighty impressive and Ferrari’s race pace today also looked really strong.” Why Mercedes struggled more in the Grand PrixRussell was also asked to assess Mercedes' car after its impressive Sprint performance and explain why the team could not reproduce the same advantage over the longer Grand Prix distance. According to Russell, track position played a major role. “When you’re out front, things are always much easier and always very challenging for the car behind to overtake unless you’re on an offset strategy,” he explained. The characteristics of Zandvoort also made the comparison between the Sprint and Grand Prix particularly difficult, as overtaking remained challenging and tyre management played a major role. Russell said Mercedes was not surprised by McLaren's competitiveness, particularly given Lando Norris' recent victory in Budapest. The similarities between the Hungaroring and Zandvoort circuits were particularly relevant. “I don’t think it’s a major surprise for us, seeing how competitive Lando was this weekend, considering he won in Budapest,” Russell said. “It’s a very similar circuit with the long corners, high tyre degradation, with the two-stop strategy, so there’s a lot of similarities between the two circuits,” Russell explained. That could mean Mercedes faces further difficulties in the immediate future, particularly if its rivals continue to develop their cars at a faster rate. “I think this may continue for the coming two or three races until we start to bring more to the car, and fingers crossed our competitors don’t,” Russell said.