HUNGARIAN GP – Sir Lewis Hamilton leads a Mercedes front row lockout beating Valtteri Bottas by three tenths
Sir Lewis Hamilton has beaten his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas by three-tenths of a second to take pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The seven-time champion was always going to be a tough driver to beat given his records at the Hungaroring, but neither driver managed to improve on their final runs.
Hamilton’s championship rival Max Verstappen did manage to improve on his final run, but he was three tenths off, he starts third ahead of his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez who was six hundredths behind. However, the Mexican failed to cross the line before the chequered flag, Verstappen also just getting across the line to start the lap.
Hamilton took his first pole since Barcelona for the Grand Prix, he goes into the race eight points behind Verstappen in the driver’s championship. The seven-times champion didn’t manage to improve on his final run, following a slow out lap behind Bottas and ahead of the Red Bull’s.
He said, “It was an amazing qualifying lap that last one. Amazing teamwork from everyone this weekend, trying to push the car forward developing constantly. It has been amazing to see everyone rallying together.”
Verstappen had topped Q1 and Q2, he was fastest following the first runs in Q3 but then Hamilton went out onto his final run ahead very slowly down the pit lane. But the slow out lap helped Mercedes, though Verstappen did manage to improve it was not enough to challenge for the front row.
The Dutchman adding, “The whole weekend we have been a bit behind and it showed again in qualifying. Not what we wanted but we are still there in third and will see what we can do.”
The top two teams have split their tyre strategies with Red Bull starting the race on the soft tyre while Mercedes should go longer into the race having got through to Q3 on the medium. The soft has faster initial performance but degrades more quickly than the medium, meaning Verstappen will likely have to pit earlier than Hamilton.
Verstappen says Red Bull decided to use the soft tyre for his second run in Q2 because his time on the medium was too marginal and he risked getting knocked out by midfield cars on the soft.
Pierre Gasly was the surprise in the midfield putting his Alpha Tauri fifth ahead of the McLaren of Lando Norris, the Englishman just six-thousandths of a second behind the Frenchman. Charles Leclerc was seven-thousandths of a second behind Norris, as his teammate Carlos Sainz crashed out of Q2.
The Spaniard was about to start his first timed run when he crashed at Turn Fourteen, while it looked minor he was unable to recover the car and walked away from the accident. It means that Sainz will start no higher than fifteenth on the grid, there could also be a precautionary gearbox change, incurring a five-place grid penalty.
Esteban Ocon was eighth going six hundredths faster than his Alpine teammate Fernando Alonso. The French manufacturer looking to build on their strong weekend at Silverstone.
Sebastian Vettel just made it through to Q3, but the Aston Martin driver was unable to improve in the final part of the qualifying and stayed tenth. The four-time champion putting in a good lap to go third midway through Q2 before being shuffled down to tenth.
Daniel Riccardo was the fastest of the drivers knocked out in Q2, the McLaren driver was knocked out by Vettel despite him managing to set a personal best in the middle sector. But he managed to spilt the Aston Martin’s with Lance Stroll two-hundredth behind Ricciardo.
Kimi Räikkönen was almost two-hundredths faster than his Alfa Romeo teammate Antonio Giovinazzi. The team has also been fined £2,500 for an incident where Giovinazzi clipped Stroll’s right-rear while exiting the pitlane in final practice, while he was reprimanded for impeding Gasly in FP3.
Sainz’s crash at the start of Q2 left him fifteenth. He was able to drive away as the session was red-flagged, but soon stopped after his front wing broke off and became trapped under the car.
Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda set a personal best as he tried to get out of the drop zone, but he was unable to improve and stayed sixteenth. George Russell’s run of getting through to at least Q2 this season came to an end he starts seventeenth. It was a rare scruffy lap from the Williams driver, he went to deep at Turn Two before running wide at the Six-Seven chicane.
However, he kept his record of outqualifying Williams’s teammates, going nine hundredths faster than Nicolas Latifi. Nikita Mazepin was nineteenth after his Haas teammate Mick Schumacher crashed in FP3 leading to a gearbox change. Schumacher thus incurring a five-place grid penalty.