Toto Wolff punches table after George Russell's Hungarian GP qualifying failure

22 July 2023 , 14:27

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Toto Wolff punched the table in frustration (Image: Sky Sports)

Toto Wolff furiously slammed the table with his fist as George Russell suffered a nightmare result in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

A new qualifying system was in place in Budapest regarding the use of tyres. It meant all 20 drivers were on hard compound tyres for Q1, leaving teams unfamiliar with how it would work out.

It meant the potential for the big hitters to be caught out. And Russell was the one who fell victim to that possibility, as he was only able to switch on his tyres enough to go 18th fastest.

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was also in trouble for a while, but was able to leap out of the danger zone with his final lap. That wasn't enough to comfort Mercedes chief Wolff, though, when he was that his other driver was out.

Sky Sports cameras cut to the Austrian after Russell's early exit was confirmed. Clearly expecting more from the session, Wolff banged his fist on his table in frustration when he realised that it was over for the 24-year-old.

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Russell was also very unhappy himself. After having it confirmed that he was out of the session by his race engineer, the Brit swore loudly and then blamed it on the traffic that he came across in the final sector of that lap.

On the ninth row of the grid, only Kevin Magnussen and Logan Sargeant will start Sunday's race behind Russell. Yuki Tsunoda and Alex Albon were the other racers who would take no further part in qualifying, having failed to progress.

Lewis Hamilton qualified on pole for the first time since December 2021 (Getty Images)

Russell was not the only big name to fall earlier than they would have wanted. Carlos Sainz could only go 11th fastest in Q2, knocked out of qualifying by his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc who leapfrogged the Spaniard out of the danger zone in the dying seconds.

But Wolff would have been in a much better mood by the end of the session. Not only did Hamilton make it through to Q3 unscathed, but he improved on his final flying lap where Max Verstappen didn't and secured pole position as a result.

It was his first pole since December 2021, beating the Red Bull racer by just three-thousandths of a second. And Hamilton was visibly emotional after the session, looking as though a significant weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

Daniel Moxon