GEORGE RUSSELL has been handed a significant boost in his world championship bid after it emerged today that Mercedes have resolved his mysterious engine problem.

Russell trails team-mate Kimi Antonelli by 50 points in the standings after the Italian teenager romped to his sixth victory from the 10 rounds so far at last weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Russell’s race ended following a collision with Lewis Hamilton which arrived after he was exposed to the chasing pack following a first-lap engine glitch. A day earlier, a deployment riddle — first blamed on Russell’s driving style — then contributed to him qualifying half-a-second behind Antonelli.

Russell said he was “praying” the debilitating problem would be fixed ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, the concluding round prior to the three-week summer break, and his Mercedes team are confident they have got to the bottom of the failure, an apparent coding issue hidden away in his engine.

Speaking at the Hungaroring today, the 28-year-old said: “These new power units are just exceptionally complex and there was something deeply embedded in the calibration of the code. It was almost impossible to see unless you knew exactly what to look for, but I’m glad we have found it.”