The qualifying session for the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix ended with a surprising outcome: George Russell took his first Formula 1 pole position, after an exciting battle at the Hungaroring circuit on Saturday. The Mercedes driver set the best time of 1: 17.377, beating the two Ferrari drivers, Carlos Sainz in P2 and Charles Leclerc in P3. Lando Norris (McLaren) was an excellent fourth, Esteban Ocon fifth then Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) only eighth due to a problem at the DRS in the last attempt. Many will ask: and the two Red Bulls? Super disappointing, with Max Verstappen only tenth, due to a problem with the power unit, while Checo Perez eleventh, unable to extract the maximum potential from his RB18.
Ferrari surprised by the competitiveness of the W13 but only up to a certain point
A linear weekend from the weather conditions point of view was not expected, both in terms of rain and temperatures. Ahead of the third free practice session, a severe thunderstorm his the Hungaroring, which allowed the teams to run on a wet track, therefore testing the behavior of the Pirelli Intermediates and Full Wet tyres.
However, as the hours passed, the rain gave way to a mainly cloudy sky, even with some sunny moments, helping to dry a track that was still very cold (about 25C compared to over 50C yesterday).
Carlos Sainz had the pace for pole but F1-75 was difficult to drive and unstable due to the green track and colder conditions as well as the wind.
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Aside from Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, who, due to completely different technical problems, were unable to maximize the last third of qualifying, the only driver who could have taken pole position from George Russell today was Carlos Sainz. His potential was there, and in fact he had the best sectors but did not put them together in one lap. It would have been pole position for the Spaniard with just under two tenths of an advantage over the strong English driver. “Congratulations to George, because he must have done a good lap in the end but I had the potential to take pole position,” said Carlos Sainz at the end of qualifying. “Obviously, the start and tire management will play a key role,” said Carlos, who hopes to overtake Russell just as the lights go out, something complicated given the consistently good starts of the W13 cars.
The disappointing performance of the F1-75 derives from a non-adaptation to the new track conditions and the wind that made the Italian cars unstable. The wind could be an even more important factor tomorrow, as rain is not expected (40% chance according to the FIA) but gusts even higher than 40 km / h are predicted “Today was not a great day because I had big problems with the tires, which I didn’t expect,” said the Monegasque. An operating window problem. His F1-75 slipped, especially in the section between turns 8 and 9 where Russell’s W13 made an important difference, taking away 5 km / h and 1 tenth in terms of time lap. “We just need to understand what was happening with the tires today. I think it all came down to the fact that today the temperatures were much cooler than yesterday, ”said Charles Leclerc who was completely focused on himself and not on the problems that occurred to Max Verstappen. “We want to focus on ourselves because I’m pretty sure we’ll have the car to win tomorrow.”
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