George Russell offers bleak Mexico GP outlook for himself and Lewis Hamilton

George Russell has painted a bleak picture of ' prospects at the .

The Brit admits he does not anticipate a dramatic turnaround in fortunes at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. That is despire needing one as their previous outing, at Austin's Circuit of the Americas, was a disaster for Mercedes.

crashed out in the final part of qualifying and started from the pit lane, while was knocked out in Q1 and spun out of the Grand Prix on lap two. For the latter, it was a worst-ever performance on American soil and at a track at which he has performed so well during his career.

Although Russell staged an impressive comeback to finish sixth, outpacing , the team's performance relative to , Red Bull, and underscored the significant ground Mercedes need to cover to get back to regular race-win contention. Historically, Mexico has been a challenging track for the Silver Arrows, even during their dominant turbo-hybrid era.

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Unfortunately for their fans, Russell does not foresee a significant shift in fortunes this weekend. Referring to their calamitous weekend in Texas, he said: "Having reviewed everything as a team, I think we were just sailing too close to the wind.

"We know how aggressively you need to set up for this era of cars, how low to the ground you need to run them, how stiff you need to run them, and I think clearly it caught both myself and Lewis out over the weekend. On the flip side, there were definitely glimmers of really strong performance in there.

"We know we need to be more conservative with the set-up. That may hinder the performance so we are going into this weekend with an open mind.

"Lewis will be on the new upgrades, I will be on the old package because we do not have two sets of it, and we will see how we get on. I am not expecting, unfortunately, to set the on fire this weekend."

Hamilton also gave his two cents, the seven-time F1 champion revealing his cautious optimism for the upcoming race in Mexico City. He said: "The car was unstable last week but it was a very bumpy track.

"This is not a bumpy track so hopefully on a smoother circuit we won't have the same problems. If we don't have the problems we had last week then yeah, maybe we can be a little bit closer to the front. It's all a big if and I'm just hoping for the positive."