What’s going on with Mercedes? F1 frontrunners ‘head scratching’ amid Hungary pace struggles

Mercedes has started the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend on the back foot after a difficult first day of Formula 1 track action during Friday practice. 

George Russell ended up as the fastest Mercedes driver but was only fifth and 0.933 seconds off the pace set by Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. 

It was an even trickier afternoon for his team-mate and championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who was down in 13th and two seconds off the pace. 

Antonelli, who missed opening practice so that Fred Vesti could complete Mercedes’ latest mandatory rookie running, did not complete a qualifying simulation lap on the soft tyres after having to abort several efforts. 

The Italian teenager complained all session about rear brake locking and was left chasing a better set-up throughout his only hour of practice running on Friday. 

“It was quite a strange day out there, I think, for everybody,” Russell admitted after FP2. 

"Budapest is an amazing track to drive, but they've resurfaced half of the track. Super bumpy, a lot of it's breaking up around the last couple of corners, which is making it quite strange to to drive on.

“Our single lap didn't look great, our long run looked more competitive. But what I guess we potentially feared with Ferrari seemed to be the case, they looked very, very strong.”

Russell insisted Mercedes has a lot of work to do in order to be in with a chance of fighting for pole position in qualifying on Saturday. 

“This weekend is a totally different beast,” he said. “These power units are pretty impressive on this short track, having 350kW coming out of all the corners and the rear tyres are getting blasted. 

“We’ve got work to do as a team. Ferrari are a good step ahead of everyone right now.

“For both Kimi and I the car was far from great to be honest and I think there is room to improve. It was really windy today and I think the wind is going to be shifting, so that could be changing a lot.”

Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord said both drivers were struggling with a lack of grip and balance on a single lap throughout Friday practice. 

“Lack of grip, lack of balance on a single lap,” Lord said. “Both drivers initially having to wind front-end out of it to find that nice sort of gentle understeer balance you want here. 

“But quite inconsistent, quite tricky. Tricky on the new tarmac as well, so no doubt down to just not quite getting the tyres in the right window for that single lap. 

“But then on the long runs, looked pretty consistent and pretty competitive versus Ferrari, Verstappen, and the McLarens. So that suggests the car's in a half-decent window, but we've just got to get things right on the single lap.”

Mercedes has taken pole position at each of the 10 rounds so far during a largely dominant 2026 season, but the team acknowledges it may have its work cut out to preserve that unbeaten qualifying streak. 

“We've got a car that's been competitive at every track. We’ve been fortunate enough to be on pole at each of them so far,” Lord said. 

“I suppose at some point a run like that comes to an end, but we'll be doing everything we can to make sure it's not here in Hungary.

“Lots of work to do overnight, bit of head-scratching, and hopefully we find a good chunk of performance going into FP3.”

On a more encouraging note for the Silver Arrows, Mercedes is confident it has resolved the straight-line speed discrepancy that was hurting Russell at recent events at Silverstone and Spa. 

“Until we've done a competitive single lap and been able to compare the two cars - because we've not been able to do that today - then you won't have the final, final definitive answer," Lord added. 

“But yes, we absolutely are confident we've found it, we've eliminated that, and that it's no longer hindering or hampering George's ultimate performance potential.”