George Russell shuts down Martin Brundle after suffering Hungarian GP disaster

George Russell disagrees with Martin Brundle’s claim that there is a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between drivers in qualifying. The Brit has refused to blame his rivals after a nightmare session for the Mercedes driver on Saturday.

Russell’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton will start the Hungarian Grand Prix on pole on Sunday. It is Hamilton’s first pole since the 2021 season.

However, Russell will be 18th on the grid after he was eliminated in Q1. Sky Sports F1 reporter Brundle reiterated the long-term view that there is a gentleman’s agreement between rival drivers that they do not overtake one another as they prepare to start laps in qualifying.

But Russell has shut down that claim, insisting there is a time when you must put yourself first. Asked if the agreement exists, the 25-year-old said: “No, because you’ve all got to think about yourself at one point and there’s just so many cars on track, I understand why some cars didn’t.

Read more… Toto Wolff punches his desk as George Russell suffers Hungarian GP nightmare

“Valtteri [Bottas], on a lap, got blocked by six cars. But we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. There’s five kilometres of track out there and the car was more than quick enough.

“At the beginning of the session we were sent out, got overtaken by everyone pushing, and then on our push lap we were overtaking everybody. So it was really not a good session for us.

“If you don’t do things right, you’ll get punished and we got punished for sure. It’s nothing to do with the driver. You’re all out there fighting for yourself.

“We’ve got a great team around us and ultimately we could have avoided that mess. So I’m not going to blame many drivers for overtaking me. I’d have overtaken them probably if I was in their shoes.

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“We didn’t need to be in that position at that time. For the whole session, it wasn’t good enough from our side.”

Russell had previously explained his frustration at Mercedes’ tactics, which saw him and Hamilton out of sync with their rivals. He said: “We were fast, car felt great. But for the whole session we were out of sync with everybody and then I got overtaken by four cars into the last corner starting my lap – one of which was [Pierre] Gasly – and I was three tenths down before I even got to Turn 1.

“Tyres were nowhere and it was totally normal that we went slower and I didn’t make it through. Really disappointed because we didn’t really need to take so many risks.

“We went out for one lap at the end, we were one of the few cars who did that, the car was more than quick enough to get through to Q2/Q3. It’s rare that we make these kind of mistakes. You get what you deserve, I guess, if you don’t do things right.”

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