George Russell's Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session quickly turned sour, leaving the Mercedes driver fuming after an unexpected elimination in Q1.
Light rain had sprinkled the track from the outset when a heavy crash by Sergio Perez triggered 10-minute a red flag that wreaked havoc on the teams’ strategies.
Mercedes opted to send Russell out early to set a time before the track conditions deteriorated further. While he initially improved his position to P10, a crucial error emerged: his team hadn't given him enough fuel to complete another lap.
Forced to pit early, Russell became vulnerable to drivers who had the benefit of the improving track after the red flag. A scorching lap from Valtteri Bottas pushed Russell out of the safe zone, condemning him to a lowly 17th place starting position.
While Russell acknowledged his own role in slowing down on his initial laps – missing the peak of the track conditions – the bigger frustration stemmed from the lack of fuel for a crucial extra lap. This mistake, he believed, ultimately cost him a place in Q2.
"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."
©Mercedes
While Russell was left stranded in Q1, he noted that Lewis Hamilton had only narrowly escaped a Q2 elimination.
Russell felt that Mercedes had failed to adapt to the changing conditions, insisting the team shouldn't be squandering its chances.
"You can never take your eye off the ball,” he added. “I think we need to have a proper sit-down as a team to understand what's going on.
"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."
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