Mercedes entered the Hungarian Grand Prix having won two straight races, but Saturday’s struggles might cost them a shot at a third
Mercedes entered the Hungarian Grand Prix on a high note, outscoring their rivals over the past four race weekends and capturing back-to-back victories with George Russell winning in Austria and Lewis Hamilton securing the win at Silverstone.
But if they are to win a third-straight race, it will take something special following the team’s “total underperformance” Saturday during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Russell was eliminated in Q1 following a “miscommunication,” and will start the Grand Prix back in 17th place. While Hamilton advanced to Q3 — only after a tense end to Q2 where he faced elimination in the closing moments — he lacked the pace of his competitors in the final segment of qualifying and will start fifth.
Following the session, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff blasted the team’s performance.
“That was a very disappointing Qualifying session for us today. It was a total underperformance from all of us. Losing a car in Q1 is clearly not acceptable,” said the Mercedes boss in the team’s post-qualifying report. “George struggled to get in a solid lap earlier in the session and we didn’t execute the final run at all. That stemmed from a lack of solid communication between ourselves and the driver. We need to ensure we learn from this so that it doesn’t happen again.
“Lewis made it through to Q3 but ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to challenge for much more than P5. We were likely a couple of tenths slower than those ahead in normal conditions anyway, but we were struggling to get on top of the [tire] temperatures. It was tricky to find the middle ground and that likely cost us a few more tenths,” added Wolff.
For Russell, the driver did not put together the best lap early in Q1, and then due to a miscommunication with the team, he did not have the ideal fuel level for his last push lap.
The pieces added up to an elimination in Q1 for the winner of the Austrian Grand Prix.
“We didn’t do a good enough job today. I was unable to put a lap together earlier in Q1 and that had left us vulnerable near the cut-off. After the red flag, we were on track at its most damp and then we didn’t have enough fuel complete a push lap as it was at its most dry. We should have been comfortably through and that is frustrating,” said Russell. “We shouldn’t have been in that position though in the first place and that’s on me. We will go through it tonight to understand what happened, what went wrong, and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
On the other side of the garage, Hamilton noted that even in the cooler conditions on Saturday — which tend to favor the W15 — the team struggled. And with higher temperatures forecast for Sunday, that could mean more hurdles for Mercedes in the Grand Prix itself.
“It’s been very difficult to find a balance with the car this weekend where it’s not snappy. That has likely been exacerbated by the heat but, even in the cooler conditions today, we still struggled,” said Hamilton. “It was a real challenge to get the tyres working and we couldn’t quite get them to where we wanted. If we had [optimized] everything, we could have likely gone one tenth or two quicker, but we didn’t have enough to challenge for pole position today.”
Still, the team is hopeful that they can bounceback tomorrow.
“We need to dust ourselves down and come back stronger tomorrow,” concluded Wolff. “It will be a long race so hopefully we can create some opportunities.”
