Russell admits Mercedes need to ‘understand’ Hungarian GP pole lap

George Russell admits Mercedes needs to “understand” how he achieved his pole position lap at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Briton stunned the paddock with a brilliant final run in Q3 to pip the two Ferraris and claim his first pole in Formula 1 and the team’s first since Jeddah last year.

“I came across the line, looked at the screen and saw we went P1, and that was an incredible feeling,” Russell said in parc ferme. “Over the moon, absolutely buzzing!”

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While Mercedes has been improving in recent races, the result was even more surprising given the struggles the team had throughout practice.

“Yesterday was probably our worst Friday of the season, and everybody last night was working so hard. We didn’t really know what direction to go in.

“And then that last lap, [I] got round Turn 1, went round Turn 2, Turn 2 was mega, and the lap time just kept on coming and kept on coming.

“We need to look into it and understand where that came from today. There’s a few ideas we had.”

Looking ahead to the race, Russell vowed to do all he can to try and convert pole into a first Grand Prix win.

“At the end of the day, there are no points for qualifying,” he noted. “We generally have good race pace, but the Ferraris looked very fast on Friday.

“You take each day at a time; you don’t want to get carried away with yourself and you just focus step by step.

“Getting off the line, good start, good first stint – is it going to be a one, two or three-stop?

“We know we have, relatively speaking, a faster race car than we do qualifying car. If that’s going to be the case again this weekend, I’ll be very shocked.

“I think we just absolutely nailed today 100% and got every last millisecond out of it.

“We’re going to be absolutely going for it, but either way, that was a pretty special day, no doubt.”