George Russell has expressed surprise at Sergio Perez’s speed at the Hungarian Formula 1 Grand Prix and also sent a warning to Red Bull. After being eliminated in Q1 during qualifying, Russell started 17th on the grid and, on hard tyres, opted to try and go long, while Perez followed a similar strategy in 2nd. 16.
The pair had success as they moved up to seventh and eighth at the finish, with Perez just under three seconds ahead of the W15 in a race that gave the Mexican driver confidence after a string of poor performances. Older brother.
Russell’s result was his worst finish since seventh at Imola, a race that included a win in Austria, a podium and a first in Canada as well as a first place. at the British GP at Silverstone.
Looking back at the race, Russell expressed his surprise and emphasized that Mercedes are no longer far away from championship leaders Red Bull. “Honestly, his speed is really surprising, and going by his recent form, we didn’t expect to have a fight with him,” Russell shared with the media. “His speed was almost on par with Max, but the injury happened [in qualifying]. That’s the way this sport should be, you make mistakes and you get punished.
“The hard tires felt quite bad, and I think using two hard tires affected us a little bit and as a team this was probably our least competitive week of racing. “But Lewis has just been on the podium, it’s our fifth podium in a row as a team, so we’ll take positives from that. “There’s no doubt we’re ahead of Ferrari and not a million miles away from Red Bull, but in the last five races we’ve clearly been fastest twice and second or third fastest in the remaining three races.”
Russell called for improvements
After making great strides with his car at recent events, Russell pointed out other areas where Mercedes can improve in upcoming races. “It seems like our performance changes depending on the temperature. “It’s possible these are just natural seasonal fluctuations, but there’s definitely some correlation with temperature.”
Russell’s performance rose to eighth place after a disastrous qualifying round – but he insisted he had learned a lesson from his early exit in Q1. “We all take responsibility and understand what we can do better,” he said. “In the end, it all comes down to communication and we probably made three mistakes during that meeting. “We just need to avoid one of those and be comfortable getting through, and it all depends on communication, so this is something to look forward to going forward.”
