George Russell admitted he was ‘angry’ as he hit out at his Mercedes team for a ‘disaster’ qualifying session ahead of the Hungarian GP that saw him finish amongst the five slowest drivers.
The Englishman had been expecting a turnaround in fortunes heading into the Budapest weekend after failing to finish at Silverstone last weekend while team-mate Lewis Hamilton went on to win the event.
However, he was left seething on Saturday as a basic error meant he exited qualifying at the earliest cut-off and will start 17th on the grid for Sunday’s main event.
Rain had dominated the start of the session before easing off and prompting teams to move their drivers off the wet weather tyres and onto softer models.
But, Mercedes made a late move with Russell and when they did act found that the driver didn’t have enough fuel remaining to put in the required laps needed to improve his time.
George Russell admitted he was ‘angry’ as he hit out at his Mercedes team after Saturday’s qualifying session
Russell was amongst the five slowest drivers during what was a difficult qualifying session
The Mercedes star fumed at his team after he was hampered by a basic error
Russell’s best 1:17.968 time placed him a spot behind Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who also endured a nightmare qualifying session and will start in 16th.
Venting at the mistake by the Mercedes garage, Russel fumed: ‘We had no fuel in the car to finish the session – no idea how that happened. It was a total disaster. I was confused, I didn’t understand it.
‘Never take your eye off the ball. We need to have a proper sit down as a team to understand what’s going on. We want the car to be fighting for the top three – we shouldn’t be standing here out in Q1.
And Lewis [Hamilton] only just scraped into Q3. I’m really quite angry right now because we’ve got such a fast car and we’ve thrown away an opportunity.’
Russell ran out of fuel during the first qualifying session and will start 17th on the grid
‘It’s going to be a difficult race. We’re still going to be able to come through and maybe fight for the top six, but from P16… it’s not going to be easy.’
‘It was not our usual standard for sure. We need to go through it and we need to understand what happened. Having enough fuel for the whole session is fundamental, so as a team we made a big error,’ he also told Sky Sports.
Meanwhile, McLaren ace Lando Norris finished on pole after starring in practice with team-mate Oscar Piastri second and championship leader Max Verstappen in third.
Lewis Hamilton will start Sunday’s race in fifth as he aims to continue Mercedes’ brief revival following a difficult first-half of the season.