Mercedes took a step back this weekend after George Russell claimed pole in Hungary. Hamilton was only fast enough for seventh in Q3 with Russell just behind in eighth. However, more shocking was Mercedes’ gap of nearly two seconds to Max Verstappen with Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari still more than a second ahead. Hamilton was asked how surprised he was to see the huge gap to the leaders after a poor qualifying session. He replied: “I mean everyone is working on improvements. We come here and we came here very hopeful that we could be close, half a second who knows. And to be 1.8 seconds behind is a real kick in the teeth. It is what it is. It’s a car we continue to race with and we certainly won’t lose it at the end of the year. READ MORE: Max Verstappen takes aim after penalty drops him to the back of the grid “For me it’s just to focus on how to build and design the car next year. The other two teams in front of us are in another championship, but our car looks very different to theirs. So we have a lot of work to do, we will we’re doing the best we can with what we have for the rest of the season.” However, Hamilton will start from the second row of the grid in fourth after three drivers in the top 10 were penalized. Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and Esteban Ocon will be relegated to the back of the grid after new components are fitted. But Russell believes Mercedes’ chances of taking advantage of the penalties to reach the podium look slim. The former Williams star said: “I think it’s unlikely we’ll be on the podium tomorrow in all honesty. DON’T MISS Martin Brund hits out at ‘ridiculous’ grid penalty rules [INSIGHT]F1 stewards clarify grid penalty error after Max Verstappen’s penalty [ANALYSIS]Toto Wolff hits back at Max Verstappen claims he’s ‘psyching everyone out’ [COMMENT] He said: “We’ve still got Carlos and Czecho there and Max will go through the field quite quickly. I don’t know, we have to look from one day to the next, try and figure it out, qualifying is off course which is our weak point and try to be faster tomorrow. “[The mood] obviously not good for sure because we want more of it. We are Mercedes and qualifying P7 and P8 is not where we want to be. We know the car isn’t there. “We know we probably don’t have the fastest car or the second fastest car, but we definitely have a car that can do more than P8 or P7. So yes, we have work to do.”