Russell fumes after 'disaster' qualifying: 'Throwing opportunities away'

For the second season in a row, George Russell was eliminated in Q1 in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver was frustrated with the results, given the team's recent strong performances, including a pole for Russell in Silverstone.

Russell will start 17th for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix after he failed to set a quick enough lap time due to being stretched for fuel at the end of the session. Speaking to GPblog and others in the paddock, Russell explained who was at fault: "Well, it was on me at the beginning. I didn't think it was going to rain again. So, I just thought the track would get quicker. I took an easy lap one and suddenly it starts raining. That was the most important lap, but it didn't matter. It was quickest at the end and we had no fuel in the car to finish the session. I have no idea how that happened. It was a total disaster."

This season, Mercedes have become much stronger, with a pole in both Canada and Silverstone. They have also won the last two consecutive races. Russell recognised that despite this new-found performance, they cannot get distracted by this: "You can never take your eye off the ball. We need to have a proper sit-down as a team to understand what's going on," he said. "We've got the car to be fighting for the top three. We shouldn't be standing here out of Q1. Lewis only just went through into Q3. Really quite angry right now because we've got such a fast car and we can't be throwing away opportunities like this." Nevertheless, the Brit has some optimism for tomorrow but recognises the challenge which was caused by the team "over optimising": "A difficult race. Still expect to come through, maybe fighting for top 6 but from P17 it's not going to be easy," he concluded.