The Saturday in F1 Hungarian GP saw an exciting end after a new qualifying format was trialed which provided stiff challenge to drivers.
It took 33 races but it finally happened when Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton completed his final lap to secure pole in F1 Hungarian GP by 0.003s over Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who couldn’t improve on his final attempt. Mercedes had its first pole since 2022 Hungary race.
That time it was George Russell, who was knocked out in Q1 itself after traffic caught him out in a new qualifying format where they ran the first session using the hard compound. For Hamilton, it was long time coming after his last pole in 2021 Saudi Arabian GP.
The simulator work helped Mercedes to be in a better position, as balance troubles cost Verstappen who ruled out issues with the new update. Teammate Sergio Perez made it in Q3 after missing out in the last five races but only managed ninth in the end.
Even Ferrari and Aston Martin had an off day with only Charles Leclerc and Fernando Alonso making it in the Top 10, while McLaren made merry with both its car in Q3 along with Red Bull and Alfa Romeo – the only three F1 teams to do so.
Hamilton: “I forgot what it feels like to sit in this spot! You’ve been hogging it for a while! I don’t think I breathed the whole lap. I think I held my breath, and I was just so out of breath at the end but it’s an extraordinary feeling, after you’ve been here for such a long time and you’ve had the success before, even though it’s 104, it feels like it’s the first. It’s hard to explain just how special it feels and I definitely don’t think… we definitely weren’t expecting to be fighting for pole today, though George got pole last year and was looking great, these guys were looking so strong, but of course I was hoping to be as high up as possible but then once we got to Q2, was looking quite decent all of a sudden, and obviously we were second, and once we got to Q3, we were only a tenth off Max and I knew I had more time I could find in the car. The majority of the time was being lost in Turn 2 and 4, and particularly 4 and 11. I don’t know if this guy’s lifting through there but the car was just not quite up to it on the previously laps but on the last one I just had to send it and hope that I stayed on track, and I think I got closer to them at least in those areas – but our last sector was particularly strong – but yeah, it was epic.
“I was so happy for everyone in the team. We’ve… it’s been a really, really difficult year and a half on a personal level, but then as a team collectively, so many ideas and trying to find the right path to be on, and continue to keep the motivation in everyone, and keep everyone driven and that’s been a challenge for all of us. So, this has been a team effort and the team deserves this today. We run the simulator, and the simulator sometimes feels good, sometimes feels terrible, and then we come to the track and you’re just always hopeful that when you get in, you’ve got somewhat of a decent balance and the car doesn’t feel bad – but nine times out of ten you get in the car and you’re like, damnit, this really feels terrible, the balance is off, front to rear temperatures, there’s always just an imbalance going through corners, and so we yesterday just wasn’t great for us – but what we do best is we work hard through the night.
“The team work hard on the simulator, and we get new direction for Saturday. We made some really great changes to the car, naturally, last night, and it put us in a much better window. So, I was then able to just build on that. But as I said, these guys were rapid. It feels great to be up here fighting with these guys. Well, normally it’s not a bad race car. We tend to have decent race pace. Max’s race pace yesterday was, I think, quite extraordinary. I think they were a little bit… quite a bit quicker than us, but yeah, if there’s a way to hold position, then maybe there’s a fighting chance for us. But just even being up there in the top three. It’s new. We’re going to have a great race, for sure.”
Verstappen: “Terrible! I mean, it doesn’t matter where you are on the grid. If it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t feel good. And the whole qualifying I’ve been struggling a lot. Well, the whole weekend really, with a shift in balance, with understeer and you try to correct it and it’s oversteer, and it was just never in a good window. So I was struggling a lot in Q1, Q2. I mean, there’s not much you can do really once you go into Qualifying. But yeah, every time I got to the apex of the corner, it was just not gripping up for me. And that’s probably the worst balance I can have in a car. And yeah, I tried to correct a few things in Q3, but there’s only so much you can do and I thought my first lap wasn’t too bad but it still felt like I was driving on ice, with the front axle. Just very peaky. Then on the second lap, already, the first sector was just, again, off. Then, I just raced a bit more in Sector 2, which paid off, but in the last sector, I again lost the front and yeah, just really inconsistent and difficult to be progressive through qualifying.
“It was just hit and miss all the time. So, I think with the upgrades we brought as well to this weekend, it is extremely disappointing from our side. I mean, we’re P2 but you know, looking at how the whole year has been, this, I didn’t expect to happen. I don’t think so, because we’ve been trying a few things and the upgrade looks good. It’s just we didn’t nail the balance of the car. Simple as that. As for the race, I mean, I only used the Soft yesterday and it was a lot colder as well. So it’s not really that representative of what will happen tomorrow when it will be even warmer. I think also yesterday maybe some other cars were still a little bit more off pace compared to today. So, normally, like Lewis said as well, when they are up front in Qualifying normally, their race car is also quite strong. So I don’t expect it to be a very straightforward race. I mean, I expect us to be quick, but around here it’s not easy to pass, especially when you’re quite closely matched on pace.”
Norris: “I think the balance all the way through… I think the one we struggled with most was probably the Hard tyre in the beginning. But the Medium and the Soft, I was pretty happy with. Just nine hundredths, you know. It wasn’t like it was a bad session, just probably when you’re under a tenth of pole, or eight hundredths off pole, you feel like that was within your driving, you know. If you just did something slightly differently, or just got on throttle a little bit earlier, like eight hundredths, you feel like is in it. So I guess that’s a little bit frustrating, especially to be so close. But, at the same time, P3. We’re also happy. I mean, I guess like Lewis said, he’s been struggling, but if you look at where we’ve been in the last few years, I think we’re even happier.
“And we’ve gone through an even tougher time, you know. We were fighting for 18th, 19th, 20th for the last year and in certain times. So, for us to be consistent now three races in a row, competitive, and to be so close to pole position is still a very good sign for us. So I’m happy, like mixed. I guess I’m happy, but also frustrated to miss out on what could have been an even better position. As for the race, I mean, Bottas isn’t behind me at the minute so that’s a good start. But we’ll see. It’s going to be tough. Lewis, I think, is one of the best… Mercedes are very good starters, Lewis included. So to get them off the line is going to be a challenge. I think they’re consistently one of the best starters on the grid. So to get the jump on him, it’s going to be difficult. If Max can do what he did in Silverstone, it’ll be wonderful. It changes every weekend. I just need to focus on getting a good start myself, focus on my own job and we’ll see from there.”
Russell: “I knew how quick the car was and we knew that we’d be fighting for the front row, but obviously Lewis has done an amazing job. I’m really disappointed to be out where we were, because the car was really quick and we just got completely screwed with that last lap with the track positioning. There’s not a lot to say, we rarely make these kind of mistakes and we got bitten really hard today, so it’s disappointing.”
Sainz: “I’m not happy to miss out on Q3 for the first time this year by only two thousands. I haven’t been comfortable with the Medium compound all weekend and I paid the price today, in the tightest qualifying of the season so far. It won’t be easy tomorrow with the traffic and the high degradation, but we’ll try everything to overtake and gain positions to bring home some good points.”
Alonso: “I was happy with the AMR23 today in Qualifying after we made some tweaks to the set-up from yesterday. The average time for us to pole position has been four to five tenths [of a second] this season, so if you look at our result today, it was a normal Qualifying. The pack is so close, so a tenth here or there makes a huge difference in deciding the final positions. I think our performance is better than our result suggests. Looking ahead to the race we know it’s difficult to overtake here, so I think it will be tough tomorrow. We will try to extract the maximum and target the top six positions to score as many points as possible.”
Whether it was the new F1 qualifying format or the circuit, but both the Alfa Romeo made it in the Top 10 after the struggles that they have had. Zhou Guanyu ended up fifth ahead of both Ferrari and Aston Martin cars, while Valtteri Bottas is in between them.
It was a sound outing for Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg again as he made it to the Top 10 once again, but it wasn’t so much for both the Alpine F1 cars who struggled on the harder compounds when they thought they were better on the soft tyre.
AlphaTauri’s Daniel Ricciardo had a sound return to finish in Q2 when teammate Yuki Tsunoda was knocked out in Q1, while Williams pair couldn’t make it outside of Q1 even though they thought they had the pace to make it in Q2.
Guanyu: “I feel absolutely amazing. Really happy. Big thanks to the team of course. To give me the car to be fighting for Q3, and then coming back with a P5, that was definitely not expected. But we knew we had the pace this weekend and qualifying, I was literally on the edge every lap. Q1, top of the table, really surprised, then I knew I had a chance. Every lap had to be 100%, a few mistakes of course with the track limits, but I was pushing on the limit. When it mattered, we delivered, especially with the last lap in Q3. So, really happy with the starting grid.” “I think we aim for, obviously, top 10. Let’s be realistic, I do feel we have a good package so far in both conditions, long and short fuels. But there’s definitely Red Bulls, Ferraris. They’ll be having a little bit [of] the upper hand on us long-term, so we need to execute as we have. If not top five, I think if we can get top eight, it really puts us back in the championship, fighting with Williams and Haas. So, it’s really important to get points.”
Hulkenberg: “Happy! All laps were clean and we extracted everything we could out of it. In Q3, unfortunately we were only 10th as we didn’t have any more pace. I was a bit concerned in Q1 with the hard tyre going into qualifying, I wasn’t sure what to expect there, but we managed to survive that. Q2 on the medium was pretty good, and then in Q3 there just wasn’t enough pace, but every Q3 for us is positive.”
Gasly: “It’s been a frustrating day for the whole team and it’s always a bitter feeling not to be in the final part of Qualifying. The qualifying system today is the same for everybody but we seemed to struggle on the harder compounds especially on warm-up and getting the tyres into a window at the beginning of the lap. In plain terms, we were simply not fast enough today. We have to keep our heads down, keep working hard and find ways to make our package quicker. This weekend is not over until the chequered flag drops tomorrow afternoon. We will see what we can do on strategy to make up some places and I’ll give it my all on track.”
Ricciardo: “The main thing is for me to get behind the wheel, feel good again and be comfortable in the car and the team. I feel like I’ve made good progress over the past two days and learnt relatively quickly, and as long as we keep progressing from here, I’ll be happy. It hasn’t been the easiest weekend to come in, with the wet conditions we had yesterday and the different tyre allocations, but I was happy to be competitive in qualifying. I don’t expect the racing to feel too foreign, I only took half a year off, so tomorrow will be fun, and of course, if there are gaps, I’ll see what the car can do.”
Albon: “If you look at Qualifying, it wasn’t a bad session as we were right in the mix – one tenth would have moved us up a few places. It’s frustrating to be so close to Q2 but it’s a bit more representative of our overall pace. It shows we’re making progress but it’s also good to come to tracks like this as it helps us to understand our car and highlight the issues. Even the tyre compounds went against us I believe as the harder tyres have less grip, so soft tyres tend to hide our problems, whilst hard tyres expose us more. It was always going to be tricky but, ultimately, I believe the Alternative Tyre Allocation penalises us more than the top teams who can save on tyres and be better prepared for Sunday.”
Pirelli: “I think this was a very interesting qualifying, with the new format posing various challenges for the drivers. It made for even closer times and more unpredictability than at previous events. That can be seen from the fact that seven teams are represented in the top ten and the fastest ten qualifiers are all within six tenths of each other. For example, the drivers had to adapt to the switch from one compound to another in the three phases of qualifying, something they are no longer used to, ever since the rule stating they had to start the race on the same set of tyres with which they made the cut out of Q2 was abolished. At the same time, considering that the Hard seems like the best choice of race tyre, many drivers opted not to use these sets in free practice and therefore found themselves somewhat in the dark in Q1, so that even the top teams had to do two runs.”
Here’s how F1 Hungarian GP qualifying panned out