Mercedes: We apologise for a mistake with Russell

Last year's Hungarian Grand Prix pole-winner, Russell was a casualty of a new format aimed at reducing the number of tires transported to races, with drivers having to use hard compounds in the first phase, mediums in the second and then softs for the top 10.

The Briton was trying to create a space in a queue of cars for a final flying lap in the first phase but ended up losing out when rivals went past him at the final corner.

Teammate Lewis Hamilton qualified in pole position, the seven times world champion's first since 2021 and extended his record to 104 top spot starts in F1.

Mercedes F1 team boss Toto Wolff said after the intense session at Hungaroring: "We made a mistake with George. We should have put him in a much better position on track and we've apologized to him for that.

"There's a gentleman's agreement that you don't overtake one another as time is running out. He had a number of cars move ahead of him though and that obviously screwed up his last lap," added Wolff.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: "The team had let George down with how we handled his session. It wasn't good enough and we'll review and see how we can improve.

"It's obviously very disappointing when we see the promise of the car and that he didn't get the opportunity to get a clean run in," explained Shovlin.

Russell said the car had felt great, but he was three-tenths down before he even got to turn one: "Really disappointed because we didn't need to take so many risks...the car was more than quick enough to get through to Q2 or Q3," he added.

The so-called 'gentleman's agreement' was not an issue said Russell: "You've all got to think about yourself at one point. There's just so many cars on track. I understand why some cars did it.

"You had (Alfa Romeo's) Valtteri (Bottas) on a lap, got blocked by six cars. But we shouldn't have been there in the first place. If you don't do things right you'll get punished and we got punished for sure," lamented Russell.