Toto Wolff lost his temper and punched a desk in the Mercedes garage as George Russell suffered a nightmare at the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Mercedes chief was furious as Russell was eliminated in the dying stages of Q1.
Russell and team-mate Lewis Hamilton had not set a lap time with less than two minutes remaining in the session. The two stars were then caught out with traffic chaos at the last corner as drivers battled for position ahead of their final runs.
Russell slowed down to create a space but two rivals dived past which forced the ex-Williams man to slow back down. This would have reduced Russell’s tyre temperatures ahead of his crucial lap.
It cost Russell with the 25-year-old unable to go quick enough to reach the second part of qualifying. Hamilton survived but it was not a comfortable end to the session for the former championship-winning manufacturer.
A disappointed Russell solely blamed the traffic for his early exit as he addressed his engineers over the team radio. He said: “Don’t tell me we are out? Guys. Was there any point? We were in all that traffic in sector three.”
Sky Sports F1 host Martin Brundle revealed drivers have a “gentleman’s agreement” to prevent traffic issues in qualifying. However, he stressed this had backfired for Russell who had his Grand Prix weekend “wrecked” by the policy.
Brundle explained: “They talk about a gentleman’s agreement at this point but I can’t understand how such a thing exists. It has completely wrecked Russell’s qualifying and probably their race.”
Russell accepted there was nothing else he could have done to reach the next session after a slow start to the lap. He commented: “We were fast. The car felt great. The whole session we were out of sync with everybody. I got overtaken by four cars going into the last corner, starting my lap.
“I was three tenths down before I got to turn one, the tyres were nowhere and it was totally normal that we went slower and didn’t make it through. Really disappointed. We didn’t need to take so many risks. We went out for one lap at the end, one of the few cars that did that.
“The car was more than quick enough to get to Q2 and Q3. It’s rare we make these mistakes. You get what you deserve if you don’t do things right.”
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