The Russell start issue that Antonelli diagnosed correctly

George Russell’s world championship hopes took another dent in Formula 1’s Hungarian Grand Prix after a disastrous start left him nearly at the back of the field.

His Mercedes had failed to get away when the lights went out, as he hit anti-stall before managing to finally get going.

Straight after the race, Russell had no immediate explanation for what had gone wrong – as he suggested his car had not responded properly to his throttle inputs during the start sequence.

“I was on the throttle holding the revs and then all of a sudden, about four seconds before the lights went out, the engine just started revving all over the place,” he said.

“I was reacting with my throttle, and it was doing nothing. So, the engine wasn't reacting to the throttle.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff had also suggested something strange had taken place.

“It looks like that he gave about 10% throttle and the whole thing revved maximum,” explained Wolff. “He went off the throttle, and it bogged down.

"So, I'm really not happy about too many mistakes that happen.”

The top of the pack issue

Despite no immediate answers for Russell's problems while the race was going on, analysis done by Mercedes afterwards confirmed suspicions that team-mate Kimi Antonelli had when he watched it for the first time in the post-race cooldown room.

Having watched the onboard replay of Russell’s poor start, Antonelli had told Lando Norris and Max Verstappen alongside him: “He hit the top of the pack and lost boost.”

This top-of-the-pack issue relates to one of the big challenges that drivers have faced in trying to master the art of getting the 2026 turbo hybrid engines off the start line.

As part of the start sequence for the complicated 2026 cars, drivers need to hold high revs for several seconds to help build exhaust energy, spin the turbine and reduce turbo lag before launch.

The aim is to maximise turbo boost before the start for that critical initial launch phase where extra battery power from the MGU-K is not allowed until the car is at 50km/h.

But drivers have to carefully manage the timing of this process because high revving charges the battery - and if it hits the top of the pack, then that can have a consequence in the MGU-K then not providing any resistance, turbo boost falling off, the revs going sky high and the fuel flow and throttle opening being cut off.

As McLaren’s technical director of performance Mark Temple explained earlier this year: “The turbo spools better when there is load on the engine, free revving it while stationary doesn’t provide much load.

“The MGU-K can provide a load against the engine, recharging the battery in the process, but if the battery is already full, then it can’t provide a load, and the turbo won’t spool well."

Mercedes had appeared to be well on top of the problem since it faced issues on this front in pre-season testing.

However, there was a perfect storm of circumstances in Hungary that meant Russell’s start sequence did not go as well as had planned.

He had started pressing his throttle quite early which, allied to a quite lengthy start sequence, meant that he was effectively charging the battery for much longer than ideal.

The time from the pre-start blue lights flashing to the five starting red lights going out in Hungary was around 13 seconds, which is at the upper end of the normal window. 

At last weekend’s Belgian GP, it was little more than 10 seconds between the blue lights flashing and the red lights going out.

This extended period in Hungary had the consequence of Russell hitting the boost limit and from then on was going to face difficulties – as any amount of throttle was going to send the revs to the roof, just as Russell experienced.

In trying to sort the situation, by coming off the throttle, events spiralled out of control as he then wasn’t in the right rev range.

While it can be argued Russell had gone too early with the throttle to get himself into the situation in the first place, equally there is a responsibility on Mercedes to agree a start strategy and give its drivers the tools to rescue things when they go wrong.

Russell said that Mercedes was doing all it could to try to get a better understanding of where things were going wrong and what needed to be done to make things better.

“Obviously the problems are happening, but the whole team feels it as well,” he said after recovering to seventh. “They're as pissed off as I am with how it's unfolded.

“We need to look at ourselves and ensure there's nothing we're doing wrong that is contributing to these errors.

"I've never had a season like this in my whole career, let alone my F1 career.”