George Russell was “angry” with his Q1 elimination from Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying, labelling his drop into 17th as a “disaster” as he appeared to go out too soon in the latter stages of the session.
The red flag produced by Sergio Perez came as light rain had intensified slightly, and the circuit began to dampen during the 10-minute delay before the session could resume.
Mercedes elected to send Russell out in a bid to improve his time, which he eventually managed as he shuffled up to 10th, but he soon retreated to the pits as it became apparent he did not have enough fuel in the tank to keep going.
This left him vulnerable to a number of drivers who had gone out later in the session, and an improved lap from Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas consigned Russell to his drop into the elimination zone.
Russell said that, although he took responsibility from his decision to slow down on his early laps and thus lost the peak of the circuit conditions, he was upset at the decision not to put the fuel in the car for one more lap as the circuit improved post-stoppage.
“It was on me at the beginning. I didn’t think it was going to rain again so I just thought, ‘the track will get quicker’,” Russell explained.
“I took it easy on lap one and suddenly it starts raining and that was the most important lap. But it didn’t matter, the end was the quickest and we had no fuel in the car to finish the session.
“No idea how that happened, and a total disaster.”
George Russell, Mercedes F1 W15, in the pits
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Russell said that the team had been guilty of “over-optimising” and not taking the conditions as they unfurled, and admitted to confusion over the radio after being told he did not have enough fuel to keep going.
He noted his Q1 exit and the near-miss of Lewis Hamilton from the Q2 elimination zone as frustrating, stating that the team should not be throwing away opportunities given the performance of its vastly improved car.
“You can never take your eye off the ball. I think we need to have a proper sit-down as a team to understand what’s going on,” he added.
“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. [It’ll be] a difficult race. We will still be able to come through, maybe fight for the top six, but from P16 it’s not going to be easy.”
