George Russell explains ‘total disaster’ Hungarian GP Q1 exit

It was disaster for George Russell during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, as rain and a lack of fuel hampered the Mercedes driver’s efforts to secure a promising time.

Russell will start the race in 17th position thanks to a session he deemed as a “total disaster.”

George Russell left “confused” in Hungarian GP qualifying

During Q1 for the Hungarian Grand Prix, Mercedes driver George Russell set a fairly slow initial lap in the firm belief that he’d be able to improve his time later in the session.

Unfortunately, a poorly timed bout of rain washed away his hopes, and an empty fuel tank saw him drop out of the session.

Two conflicting radio messages emerged during the course of the session. Russell both apologized to the team, taking blame for failing to advance on himself, while also lashing out at Mercedes for failing to fill his fuel tank.

Speaking to media after the race, Russell elaborated on those messages.

“Well, it was on me at the beginning,” Russell admitted. “I didn’t think it was going to rain again, so I thought the times would get quicker.

“I took it easy lap one, and suddenly it starts raining. That was the most important lap.

“But it didn’t matter; the track was quickest at the end and we had no fuel in the car.

“No idea how that happened. It was a total disaster.”

Russell admitted to being “confused” by the fuel situation. When asked for his opinion on how that could even happen, his response was simple: “Over-optimizing.”

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“We need to have a proper sit-down as a team to understand what’s going on,” Russell continued.

“We’ve got the car to be fighting for the top three. We shouldn’t be standing here out of Q1.

“Lewis only just scraped through into Q3.

“I’m really quite angry right now because we’ve got such a fast car and we can’t be throwing away opportunities like this.”

That is a much different tone to the one taken by Lewis Hamilton after Friday practice, when the seven-time champion stated that the Mercedes W15 felt “just as bad” to drive as it always does in the heat, and that he wasn’t going to get his hopes up.

Russell hasn’t totally discounted the possibility that he may have a shot for a top-10 finish on Sunday.

He told media that he’s expecting “a difficult race.”

“We’ll still be able to come through, maybe fight for the top 6, but from P16, it’s not going to be easy,” he said.

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