An unhappy Toto Wolff called out his entire Mercedes team for its “total underperformance” in Saturday’s Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying.
While Lewis Hamilton barely managed to scrape into the final shootout and finished fifth, George Russell was left stranded in Q1 in P17 due to a crucial error on his final flyer coupled with a strategic misstep by the Mercedes team.
Conditions were tricky from the outset, with light rain and a red flag stoppage caused by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez initially throwing a curve ball at teams, while Q3 was also disrupted late in the segment by Yuki Tsunoda’s crash, squandering the final flyers of several drivers.
However, speaking to Sky F1 after qualifying, Wolff blamed “everybody involved” for the Brackley squad’s poor performance.
- Read also: Russell left fuming after Hungarian GP qualifying ‘total disaster’
“It was a total underperformance, literally from everybody involved here,” commented a frustrated Wolff.
“Losing a car in Q1 is just not on – driver-team combination, it shouldn’t happen. At the end, we just didn’t have the pace. A very disappointing day.”
©Mercedes
Russell raised concerns about Mercedes’ decision not to fully fuel his car for the end of Q1, given the improving track conditions.
However, he later accepted responsibility over team radio, admitting the failure was “on me.” Wolff conceded that the strategy was flawed, despite Russell deviating from the original run plan.
“He thinks he should have had the first lap in, where Lewis went P1, he said that was probably taken too easy,” explained Wolff, recounting Russell’s efforts.
“The other one, we put enough fuel to the end but it was a different run plan. It was a fast-slow-fast and he decided to do three fast laps.
“But overall, it is 70% the team’s mistake on not fuelling one lap more.”
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