Mercedes’ Russell stuns Sainz and Ferrari at Hungaroring to earn first career pole; Leclerc P3; nightmare quali for Red Bull with Verstappen P10, Perez P11
Mercedes young hard charger George Russell stunned the field and particularly Ferrari when he laid down a stonking lap at the death of Q3 during Saturday qualifying for tomorrow’s Hunagrian Grand Prix. At the short, twisty and highly technical Hungaroring, Russell bested the seemingly insurmountable fast lap of the Scuderia’s Carlos Sainz by .044 seconds to earn his first career Formula 1 pole position. It was pure joy for Russell and his side of the Mercedes garage while Sainz and Ferrari were left shaking their heads at the last second reversal. Sainz will start P2 alongside Russell on the front row tomorrow with the second Prancing Horse of Charles Leclerc earning P3 for his efforts.
If Russell’s over performance wasn’t enough to make for an extra thrilling quali, the anomalously abysmal performance of team Red Bull added another layer of intrigue and contributed to a massive shuffling of the expected grid. First, Sergio Perez was erroneously dinged for exceeding track limits during Q2, which put the Mexican off his stride. By the time the stewards had corrected their error and restored his time, Perez was at sixes and sevens and couldn’t get his pace up enough to get out of the second quali session, relegating him to P11 come Sunday on what is something of a bogey track for him. As if that wasn’t bad enough, points leader Max Verstappen experienced some sort of engine issues in Q3 that robbed him of full power and saw the rest of the other final nine runners easily blow past his best time. So Verstappen will start in the unfamiliar position of P10 come race day and will be forced to fight his way back to the front on a circuit where passing is more than a little difficult.
The Red Bulls’ twin misfortunes opened the door to McLaren’s Lando Norris to set the fourth fatstest Q3 time in a strong effort, while his teammate Daniel Ricciardo could do no better than P9. The two Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso earned P5 and P6 respectively, somewhat surprising since Alonso had been the quicker of the two all weekend long up until that point. The second Silver Arrow of Lewis Hamilton was far off the pace of his pole-sitting junior teammate, seeming to struggle with his tires after locking up multiple times en route to only the seventh fastest lap. Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas broke a cold streak and finally made it into Q3, taking a solid P8 on the grid.
With so many cars out of expected position, Russell keen to earn his first F1 victory, Ferrari anxious to stop him and the Red Bulls determined to fight back from far back, tomorrow’s race could be bonkers.
Top 10 qualifiers for the Hungarian GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:18.407 | 1:18.154 | 1:17.377 | |
| 2 | 1:18.434 | 1:17.946 | 1:17.421 | |
| 3 | 1:18.806 | 1:17.768 | 1:17.567 | |
| 4 | 1:18.653 | 1:18.121 | 1:17.769 | |
| 5 | 1:18.866 | 1:18.216 | 1:18.018 | |
| 6 | 1:18.716 | 1:17.904 | 1:18.078 | |
| 7 | 1:18.374 | 1:18.035 | 1:18.142 | |
| 8 | 1:18.935 | 1:18.445 | 1:18.157 | |
| 9 | 1:18.775 | 1:18.198 | 1:18.379 | |
| 10 | 1:18.509 | 1:17.703 | 1:18.823 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN beginning at 9AM Eastern here in the States. With the grid well and truly shuffled and passing at a premium in this last tilt before the summer break, it should make for a potentially conflict-filled affair where the final outcome is anyone’s guess. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!