Hamilton takes Hungary pole while Red Bull struggles

Reigning Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix, as his Mercedes team locked out the front row and Racing Point’s Lance Stroll starred as best of the rest in third place.

Mercedes was tipped to face a sterner test at the high-downforce Hungaroring, but its one-lap advantage ballooned instead as its expected main rival Red Bull’s difficult weekend continued.

This meant it was a straight shoot-out between Hamilton and team-mate Valtteri Bottas for pole, and Hamilton drew first blood in the decisive third segment as he lapped three tenths of a second quicker than Bottas with a 1m13.613s.

He followed that up with a 1m13.447s, protecting his pole from Bottas’ late improvement that put the Finn just over a tenth slower than his Mercedes team-mate.

Stroll and Sergio Perez made it an all-Racing Point second row, but the Canadian – the quicker of the two for the second time in qualifying this season – was 0.930s off Hamilton.

Along with the two Mercedes drivers, the Racing Points made it into Q3 on mediums and will therefore start Sunday’s race on the harder tyre.

After the two first qualifying sessions of season featured just a single Ferrari SF1000 in their respective final segments, both of them made it to Q3 this time by, with Sebastian Vettel pipping Charles Leclerc to a fifth-place start – Ferrari’s best so far this season.

This was made possible by an off-colour Q3 for Red Bull and Max Verstappen, the Dutchman finishing seventh, 1.402s off pole and with a final lap that was 0.014s short of his previous best.

Verstappen’s team-mate Alex Albon suffered the ignominy of missing the pole shootout entirely, having struggled throughout the weekend and consigned to 13th on the grid when his final Q2 lap came undone in the very first sector.

“Sorry, guys, but I told you, don’t put me in traffic,” Albon radioed to his team at the conclusion of his running.

The two McLarens of Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr made up the top nine, as Norris beat Sainz by six hundredths of a second.

AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly reported a “big problem” with his Honda power unit during Q1 and his concerns carried into Q2, the Frenchman saying he was worried about “destroying the engine”.

The team informed him there was no immediate fix, and though Gasly booked a spot in Q3, he ultimately sat out the session entirely, settling for 10th on the grid.

The two Renaults joined the Mercedes and Racing Point cars in initially using mediums in Q2, but will have free choice of tyre anyway as neither made it into the final segment.

Daniel Ricciardo failed to improve on his soft run late in Q2 and will start 11th, while Esteban Ocon’s soft-tyre gains were only good enough to strengthen his hold on 14th.

A week on from breaking its streak of Q1 eliminations that lasted over a year, Williams got both its cars into Q2 at the Hungaroring.

And while rookie Nicholas Latifi was ultimately a distant 15th in the second segment, George Russell claimed the scalps of a Red Bull (Albon) and Ocon (Renault) en route to 12th place.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen was last on the timing screens when the chequered flag flew in Q1, but his last-gasp lap elevated him to 16th as he came up just half a tenth short of a Q2 berth.

He and team-mate Romain Grosjean were separated by Daniil Kvyat in 17th, the AlphaTauri driver lapping four and a half tenths slower then Gasly in the first segment.

Finally, the two Alfa Romeos made it four Ferrari engine customers in the bottom five as its C39s both failed to make it out of Q1 for the third weekend running, with Antonio Giovinazzi narrowly outpacing Kimi Raikkonen for 19th place.

Qualifying Results