F1 News: Mercedes Chief Livid After Hungarian GP Changes

In a recent interview with Sky Sports, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff expressed his dissatisfaction with the newly adopted qualifying format this weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix. According to him, the updated structure doesn't offer anything particularly new or valuable, describing it as "weird", adding, "it doesn't work".

This temporary change in qualifying structure currently compels teams to be extra cautious with their tyres. Consequently, most practice sessions see drivers on previously used tyres. This change has led to teams feeling uncertain and unclear about their actual standing on the grid.

This weekend witnessed F1 testing the waters with an alternative qualifying format. A key deviation from the standard norm was the mandate for drivers to participate in Q1 with hard tyres. Medium tyres were the requirement for Q2 and only in Q3 were they permitted to switch to red, soft tyres. This new rule nudges teams to save as many sets of tyres as possible for qualifying, in an effort to avoid running on worn-out tyres at arguably the most important part of this weekend.

Wolff is far from pleased with this test format. He voiced his confusion

"It's weird. Nobody understand where you are. It doesn't work. Teams just drive one tyre in FP1, and FP2. It doesn't make sense.

"Then you're not able to understand the pecking order."

While the Austrian acknowledges the rationale behind the changes and is willing to embrace new ideas, he finds this specific experiment lacking in merit. He doesn't hold back in saying:

"I think you need to be open minded, to make the show and sustainability better. But I don't think this is something that worked. If something is not broken, don't fix it."

Lewis Hamilton finished P1 in qualifying today, but after strategic issues from the Brackley team in Q1, George Russell left the session at P18 on the grid. This will be a Suday of mixed emotions for the team, I'm sure.

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