Ferrari's Leclerc surprises McLaren to take Hungarian pole position
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc has beaten favourites Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris to pole position. The McLarens seemed to have lots of pace in hand during practice but the Ferrari qualifying specialist surprised himself after struggling to make it out of Q1 and Q2.
Qualifying started with the two Williams driver taking to the track. As they are struggling that last couple of races the British team is looking to bounce back but a big lockup at Turn 1 for Sainz on his first effort immediately sort of dimmed hope.
Others waited a bit to take to the track but eventually McLaren and Red Bull released their drivers, followed by the other teams. As Verstappen and Tsunoda continued to struggle with the balance of their cars they couldn't challenge the McLarens, of which Piastri was comfortably fastest on the first outing.
The 4 tenth gap between them was filled by Russell and Antonelli as they completed their laps whereas the Ferrari duo, the closest contenders so far in practice had underwhelming laps and sat 5th and 9th when everybody had completed at least one flying lap. Alonso, Hadjar and Stroll split the leading Ferrari of Hamilton from Leclerc.
7 minutes from the end the Williams were out again for another attempt with the Aston Martins following one minute later to still enjoy a clear track for their second flying laps.
Stroll improved well and moved up to thrid, only to be demoted to fourth when Alonso went purple in each sector to beat Piastri's earlier lap by three tenths. Clearly the track was improving as clouds enabled the track surface to cool down a bit.
2 minutes from the end Piastri took the lead back by a mere 0.070s. Verstappen improved too but didn't get further than 6th. Improvements across the board soon endangered the Ferrari duo with especially Leclerc requiring an improvement to be sure of making it through. Both improved enough to easily make it through, finally eliminating Tsunoda, Gasly, Ocon, Hulkenberg and Albon.
After an extra 5 minutes of delay, Q2 kicked off with a note to drivers that some drops of rain were expected soon. Immediately drivers went out on track, trying to enjoy the best possible track conditions.
The Mercedes duo were first to set a time but both were beaten by Bearman and Hadjar, followed by Stroll and then Alonso taking the top of the timing sheets once again. The McLarens and Ferraris followed when everybody else had set their times. Norris impressed to beat Alonso by 0.7 seconds while Piastri followed that up with a lap just 0.051s slower than his teammate. The Ferrari duo were average at best and set 9th and 10th. Leclerc clearly felt the heat and told his engineer he wanted to be released early for his second attempt to avoid issues with traffic.
Colapinto in the meantime had is laptime deleted after he suffered oversteer in the middle of Turn 11, requiring him to correct and go wide.
Stroll was the first to go out again, once more enjoying a clear track and improving past Alonso. The Spaniard meanwhile gambled on saving a set of tyres. Charles Leclerc had a great lap and secured 5th while Hamilton ended up shaking his head once again after being eliminated by a few hundreths, noting "Every time, every time".
Q3 also started with a longer than usual pause after Q2, this time with the McLaren duo taking to the track early on, following Leclerc, Stroll, Alonso and the single remaining Mercedes of Russell.
Stroll set the benchmark but soon had his lap annulled. Alonso was again on firm and proved faster than Verstappen but it was Russell who proved best of the rest on the first attempts. Russell was on track to be fastest but had a poor final sector and therefore stranded at 2 tenths of Piastri and Norris.
Stroll and Alonso were out again soon and started their second flying laps with 4 minutes remaining in the session. As always, Stroll was the first on track and set the third fastest time. Alonso had another purple first sector, a personal best in S2 and S3, leading to P2 at just 0.083s of Piastri.
What came next was an unbelievable surprise with Leclerc beating the McLaren duo who were unable to improve on their times. Qualifying specialist Leclerc brought smiles in the red paddock by stunning the McLarens, beating Piastri by a mere 0.025 seconds. "Mama mia!", as Leclerc noted on the radio. We couldn't have said it any better.
