George Russell added another unfortunate reliability issue to his tally as he had to abandon his car at the end of Qualifying in Hungary due to a sudden leak, which he likened to “a water pistol being sprayed at the tyres”.
Mercedes, and especially Russell, had struggled to keep up with rivals Ferrari and McLaren when it came to single lap pace at the Hungaroring, and their woes continued as they headed into Qualifying.
Grid position can be key at this circuit due to its limited overtaking opportunities, with Russell’s first effort in Q3 enough for P7. He joined the remaining drivers in lining up a final flying lap but had to abort it after Max Verstappen spun at Turn 13.
He subsequently maintained P7 and was shown slowing to a halt at the first corner after Mercedes instructed him to park up, later revealing that his car had a water leak and possible further damage that the team will have to amend overnight.
Russell explained: “It didn’t really affect anything, although there was a water leak and we saw on the tyre temperatures that water was spraying on the tyres during my last lap, so my last lap was rubbish.
“I think there’s maybe a reason for it because it was like a water pistol being sprayed at the tyres, which doesn’t necessarily give you more grip. The truth is that this whole weekend, we haven’t really had the pace.
“We’ve looked very strong in the race pace. Did we strike the right balance between the Quali set-up and the race set-up is maybe the question we’ll have answered tomorrow. Just struggled to get the tyres switched on all day.”
Russell has suffered the consequences of several problems at Mercedes this season, with the team revealing ahead of this weekend that they discovered and fixed a software issue that caused him to lose power at the recent Belgian Grand Prix.
He remains in contention for the title in what he described as “the toughest battle I’ve had psychologically”, and added that there is still hope when it comes to their race pace in Hungary.
“Yesterday we were a second off in Qualifying practice but in the race pace we were the quickest, which tends to say you’re not getting enough temperature in the tyres for that Qualifying lap,” he said.
“But then in the race when you want to keep the tyres cooler, that’s where it pays off. This is a track where it’s very difficult to overtake o as I said, perhaps we haven’t struck the right balance. Maybe tomorrow when we’ve got good pace – fingers crossed – we’ll say we have.”