There was a horrible sense of deja vu for George Russell as Williams’ poor race pace undid a strong qualifying in Hungary.
The British driver made Q2 and started P12 for the second straight weekend in Budapest, but just like Austria, Russell was soon back down the field with only his teammate Nicholas Latifi behind.
“It seemed like everyone on the right-hand side of the grid made terrible starts,” he commented post-race.
“I felt like I made an average start compared to the guys ahead of me, but then everyone on the left shot past me.
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“From then on in, our race pace was really poor.
“We need to understand what’s going on because last year, it was the opposite, the race pace was better than the quali pace,” Russell stated.
“Now we’re pretty fast on a Saturday and struggle a lot on a Sunday. We’ve got some analysing to do.”
Despite being unable to capitalise on his impressive qualifying pace, Russell believes Williams can still be satisfied with its progress.
“If we look at everything and see the steps we’ve made, especially on the Saturdays, we’ve got to be relatively pleased and [there’s] plenty of positives,” he said.
“But we just need to rectify the negatives and make the pace of the car a bit better across the board.”
For now though, George is looking forward to a week off before the next tripleheader beginning with two home races in Britain.
“I’m looking forward to driving at Silverstone,” he admitted. “I think everybody is looking forward to a couple of days off as it’s been flat out for all of us.”
