Mercedes technical boss, James Allison admits that Kimi Antonelli's ongoing struggles are down to the team.

Following a strong start to the season, which saw the youngster score points in five of the opening six races, he has suffered a slump which has seen him score just 15 points - admittedly with a podium finish - in the next seven events.

A throttle control issue meant retirement from his home race at Imola, while an engine issue meant retirement in Spain. He crashed on the opening lap in Austria and a week later suffered terminal accident damage at Silverstone.

Last weekend was undoubtedly his worst weekend so far, finishing 17th in the Sprint and 16th next day in the race having qualified 18th.

The results have taken their toll, and speaking to the media on Saturday it was clear that he had been crying. Indeed, the following day Lewis Hamilton is understood to have visited the youngster to reassure him.

However, Allison is keen to make clear that the slump isn't down to the driver.

"I think he's, like the rest of us, massively fed up with a string of results that are well below what we were collectively achieving earlier in the year," says the team's technical boss in its latest video debrief.

"I hope he takes some solace from the fact that we tell him, and it's demonstrably a fact, that we have taken the wrong steps with the car, making our team less competitive, and that he is paying the price for that, as is George," he adds. "If the car isn't where it needs to be, then it will be a struggle getting through the qualifying stages in your rookie season in F1.

"Hopefully he's listening to us as we say those reassuring words because we absolutely know that he is putting in the effort on his side of that bargain," says Allison.

Of course, Russell too is paying the price and has called for a meeting ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix at which the slump will be discussed.

"We need to really understand what is going on and why we've taken such a step backwards because these conditions today, you would argue, are ideal for us and our car," he said in Spa on Sunday, "and once again, it's been the worst performance of the season. So we're going to have a big sit-down this week and try and figure it out.

"Definitely the car isn't feeling as nice to drive at the moment as it once did," he added. "It's lacking rear stability, whereas at the start of the year it was much better.

"I think Kimi and I are collectively making more mistakes because the car is more challenging to drive," he continued. "So we need to sit down as a team.

"As I say, it may be as simple as reverting back some of the changes we've made. But, in Formula 1, it's never that simple. Obviously, we had the change of the front wing in Barcelona, we then went in a slightly different direction afterwards to sort of tackle the issue of the change of front wing. And clearly, since that point, we've taken a big step backwards.

"So, it could be as simple as just reverting back to something that we had earlier in the season," he explained. "Of course, you can't do that with the front wing, but in terms of the rest of the setup... I don't know, it seems quite strange how we've gone so far backwards."

Trackside engineering boss, Andrew Shovlin believes the issue is more complex than the Barcelona wing change.

"That's what we need to understand," he said. "What we had early on in the year was a car that was working well at pretty much every circuit. We were generally fighting for the second row of the grid, if not the front row.

"It's probably true for anyone that the TD (technical directive introduced in Spain) won't improve stability, but this wing was on the car in Montreal and it was fine. The fact is other people are able to balance their cars a bit better.

"There's no doubt a solution in there for us," he insisted, "but as I said, we're just looking at all the steps that we've taken with the car design over the last number of races. It isn't just the front wing that's changed, and I'm sure there's more that we can learn.

"That's what the focus is on over the next few races, trying to pinpoint why we're getting this entry stability issue. That TD on the front wing might take you in the wrong direction, but the fact is when we've dropped aero balance out of the car, the instability is still there," he admitted.

Asked if the necessary changes can be made in time for this weekend's race, the last before the summer break, after which all teams are set to focus almost entirely on next year, he said: "It depends what extent you're talking about, but it's definitely possible for us to look at changing aspects of the car for Budapest. How deep we go will depend on what parts we've got around us.

"There's quite a lot that we've changed, so we've got a meeting with the drivers to go through some of what we've done over the year to try and make sure that our efforts are focused on the right things, not just changing things for the sake of it."