George Russell is annoyed about a mistake in Q3 that cost him a possible pole position in Hungary – but fourth place with old suspension is okay for him
Hardly anyone expected Charles Leclerc to take pole position in Formula 1 qualifying in Hungary, but there was another driver who could have beaten the two Mercedes cars. George Russell set two fastest sector times in his first Q3 attempt, but couldn’t finish in the last sector.
He made a mistake in turn 14 that he said cost him three-tenths of a second. The wind was apparently to blame: “Yes, the wind had changed a lot, it was much more gusty. That corner was completely different to Q2, but I should have reacted,” said a frustrated Russell. “I knew the wind was different and I just had a lot less downforce in the corner.”
“But that’s the reality—I should have adapted, and that cost me pole today,” said the Mercedes driver, whose second run in Q3 was still good enough for fourth place. In the end, he was just 0.053 seconds off pole—and that would have been well within his reach.
Because: If Russell had driven the same time in the last sector in his first run as he did in his second run, he would now be on pole. With the mistake, the Englishman drove the sector in 21.625 seconds – without the mistake, it would have been 21.303 seconds. Since Leclerc’s time was less than three tenths faster than Russell’s first time, it would have been enough for him.
“But if you talk to every driver, they’ll all tell you why they missed out on pole,” he said. “No one set their personal best time in Q3.”
In his view, it had been a chaotic session anyway, because everyone’s times were getting slower. While Russell lost two tenths, McLaren lost half a second. “I’m not going to overestimate the Q3 result because the whole weekend hasn’t really been straightforward so far. Of course, Kimi also crashed out in Q2, so overall it didn’t go entirely smoothly.”
Why use the old suspension now?
Mercedes is competing in Budapest with an old suspension because the upgrade from Imola did not bring the desired success and cost the drivers confidence. But one has to ask the question: Couldn’t Mercedes have identified this as a problem much earlier?
“I think Formula 1 is just extremely complex,” says Russell. “You can have exactly the same car, but you’re fast on one track and slow on another – and for completely different reasons.”
“You have to test an upgrade on different types of tracks and under different conditions to be able to say with certainty: ‘This is why we are good or bad.’
The team explained Barcelona and Imola with the high temperatures, which always cause problems, “but at Spa we were clearly below our expectations – and the suspension was definitely not an upgrade.”
The Briton cannot say whether Mercedes will be able to perform better in the second half of the season: “It’s definitely been a bit challenging lately. I haven’t really felt confident in the car lately.“
”Sure, today P4 was a bit back to normal for us. But the fact is, McLaren was weak in Q3 – at every other point of the weekend they were seven tenths ahead of everyone else, four tenths ahead of us. They remain the benchmark.”
