Russell sends Red Bull warning after Hungary 'surprise'

George Russell has expressed surprise at Sergio Perez's pace in the Hungarian Grand Prix as he also sent Red Bull a warning. 

After being dumped in Q1 in qualifying, Russell started 17th on the grid and on the hard tyres, opting to try and go long, with Perez on a similar strategy from 16th. 

It worked for the pair as they climbed to seventh and eighth by the flag, with Perez less than three seconds ahead of the W15 in a confidence-building race for the Mexican following his poor run of form.

Russell's result was his worst finish since seventh at Imola, a run which has included victory in Austria, a podium and pole in Canada as well as a home British GP pole at Silverstone. 

Reflecting on the race, Russell revealed his surprise and highlighted Mercedes is not far away from the race of championship leaders Red Bull.

"His pace was surprisingly good, to be honest, and following his recent form, we didn't expect to be in a fight with him," Russell told media including RacingNews365.

"His pace was almost in line with Max's, but the damage was done [in qualifying]. That is how it should be in the sport, you make mistakes and you get punished. 

"The hard tyre was feeling pretty rubbish, and I think having the two hard tyres slightly compromised us and as a team this was probably our least competitive race weekend. 

"But Lewis just got on the podium, it is five in a row for us as a team, so we will take the positives from that.

"Without a doubt, we are ahead of Ferrari and not a million miles away from Red Bull, but in the last five races, we've clearly been quickest twice and second or third fastest in the other three.”

Russell calls for improvements

Having made strides forward with its car at recent events, Russell pointed to other areas Mercedes can improve in the races ahead.

"There seems to be a fluctuation in our performance based on temperature. 

"Maybe it is just natural fluctuations through a season, but there definitely seems to be some correlation with temperature.” 

Russell's run to eighth place followed a disastrous qualifying outing - however he asserted lessons have been learned from the early Q1 exit.

"We all took responsibility and understood what we could have done better,” he said. 

"Ultimately, it all came down to communication and we probably made three errors in the course of that one session. 

"We only needed to avoid one of those and would have comfortably gone through, and it was all down to comms, so it is one to look at for the future."