George Russell secured his maiden career pole position in Formula 1 to deny a Ferrari one-two at the Hungaroring, while Max Verstappen fell to tenth on the grid.
Carlos Sainz Jnr had been on provisional pole position and had improved on his final lap at the chequered flag ahead of team mate Charles Leclerc, but Russell’s final effort was good enough to beat both Ferraris and take pole position by just four hundredths of a second, with Lando Norris taking fourth place on the grid.
A mistake on Verstappen’s first flying lap left him under pressure, but a loss of power on his final run left him unable to improve, leaving him stranded in tenth place.
Q1
After the third and final practice session was run in wet conditions for its entirety, the track was more than dry enough for slick tyres when the drivers headed out onto the Hungaroring for the first phase of qualifying. The front running teams did not rush out onto the circuit at first, allowing those in the midfield a clearer track to set some early times.
Eventually, Max Verstappen took to the track and set the fastest time of the session with a 1’19.020, ahead of Lando Norris in the McLaren. By the time the Ferraris set their first flying laps, Carlos Sainz Jnr could only manage fourth behind George Russell’s Mercedes.
Verstappen continued to improve his own fastest time, getting as low as a 1’18.509. Sainz improved to sit within half a tenth of the Red Bull in second, while Charles Leclerc moved into third place, a quarter of a second slower than Verstappen’s best.
In the final minutes of the session, the drivers in the drop zone had all returned to the pits after their earlier runs, rather than stay on track. Alexander Albon, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, Daniel Ricciardo were all at risk of elimination along with last-placed Yuki Tsunoda whose best time was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn five.
Bottas, Ocon and Ricciardo all managed to improve by enough to go safe, dropping Sebastian Vettel, Pierre Gasly and Nicholas Latifi into danger. Gasly exceeded the track limits on the exit of turn five and had his final time deleted, meaning he fell back into the drop zone and at risk of elimination in 19th. Vettel failed to improve by enough and was also out in 18th, much to his disappointment after he helped his Aston Martin mechanics repair his car after his final practice crash.
By the time all drivers had completed their final laps, those knocked out were Tsunoda, Albon, Vettel, Gasly and…
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