George Russell - Mercedes' Hungarian GP weekend 'salvageable'

Hungarian Grand Prix

Russell - Mercedes' Hungarian GP weekend 'salvageable'

Mercedes drivers were far off the pace at the Hungaroring

Ian Parkes

Friday 29 July 2022 21:35

George Russell feels Mercedes' Hungarian Grand Prix weekend is 'salvageable' in the wake of a difficult day of practice at the Hungaroring.

Russell and seven-time F1 champion team-mate Lewis Hamilton could only manage eighth and 11th quickest at the end of the two hour-long sessions at the Hungaroring, while both drivers also experienced other issues.

The younger Briton endured locking in FP1 and then additional handling issues in the later session, while Hamilton sustained damage to his car in FP2 on a low-fuel run.

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But with the weather set to alter significantly across the weekend, with rain forecast for qualifying and a dry but cooler day on Sunday, Russell was not too disheartened.

Asked as to what had changed with the car to deliver the problems, Russell said: "Not too sure to be honest. It's definitely not our smoothest Friday so far.

"A bit of a strange one because we think it's going to be wet tomorrow for quali, and conditions on Sunday are going to be drastically different.

"So we were trying quite a few things with the car, using it as a bit of a test session because, to be honest, you can try and optimise everything today but there is no use for that for the rest of the weekend.

"Even though it was a very tough day I think it has been a productive one."

Russell reveals "longer-term" thinking

Dismissing suggestions the W13s were set up for the wet qualifying in a bid to try and optimise grid position for the race, Russell added: "No, I wouldn't say so.

"More in the sense of trying things to learn more things about the car, at the expense of trying to get the most out of the lap time.

"It's been more trying to gather the information to help us longer term.

"But, yeah, we were definitely a little bit further away than we would have expected, a couple of issues here and there.

"But tomorrow is going to be a totally new day, and Sunday will also be a very different day so not a loss yet."

As to whether the weekend was "salvageable", Russell asserted: "Absolutely."