After a rain-soaked final practice for the 2022 Hungarian GP, the sun emerged and the W Series race saw all drivers on slick tyres throughout. That may have taken a few Formula 1 teams by surprise, as many were expecting a wet qualifying. Ahead of the qualifying, expectations were for Q1 to start in dry conditions – but that there could be some rain by the end of Q1 or the start of Q2.
Ferrari had hoped for things to be rather less soggy at the Hungaroring than they were a couple of hours earlier during the third free practice session, given the fact that the F1-75 cars were very strong in dry conditions, as seen in the Friday practice sessions.
The light went green at the end of the pit lane, and several cars, including the repaired Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel were straight out on track. It was dry in this start of Q1, but there were some incredibly menacing clouds in the vicinity. With the Ferrari cars yet to emerge from the pits, it was Max Verstappen who set the early pace, with a 1:19.020. He was followed by Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, who were both 0.7s, with the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez fourth.
As was the case yesterday, McLaren appeared to have some pace: Lando Norris went second, 0.5s back from Max Verstappen, with his first flying lap. It looked as though he might be able to give Mercedes some trouble this afternoon. Meanwhile Valtteri Bottas also went above the Silver Arrows into third. It wasn’t a very impressive start from Ferrari: Carlos Sainz could only go fourth with his first flying lap, while Charles Leclerc was tenth. After his FP3 heroics, Nicholas Latifi was now in the drop zone.
In their second run, Carlos Sainz went second and Charles Leclerc third, but Max Verstappen improved to a 1:18.509 to ensure he remained on the top of the timesheet. With the track continuing to evolve, Ferrari and Mercedes weren’t taking any risk of being caught out: their cars were on their way out for a final run with three minutes remaining, and the Red Bulls also joined them. Zhou Guanyu showed how much the track is improving by shooting up to P5 for Alfa Romeo. All that work to get his car ready, but Sebastian Vettel couldn’t make it through to Q2. He was joined by the Williams cars and perhaps more surprisingly, both AlphaTauri cars. Williams will be wondering where the rain went after their stunning FP3 showing earlier!
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The 15 minutes for Q2 were already upon us, as Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto expected his drivers to put in much improved times as the session went on: “It has been a difficult Q1, it has been difficult for all the drivers. The temperature of the track is almost 20 degrees less than yesterday so different car balance. I think coming from the wet session, we need to get confidence once again with the car and the track. There will certainly be time to improve through the session so let’s see.” – the Ferrari boss said ahead of Q2.
Max Verstappen was looking supreme at this stage of qualifying: he went fastest in the leaders’ first runs in Q2, but the surprise is who was closest to him: it was Lando Norris, who outpaced Ferrari and Mercedes for McLaren. Less good news for the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez, who lost his lap time for failing to stay within the tracks limits. Fernando Alonso then went second for Alpine, with team-mate Esteban Ocon sixth. Daniel Ricciardo slotted in behind his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris to go fourth.
With five minutes left in Q2, Carlos Sainz was in the elimination zone with a lot of work to do to secure a place in the top ten. In a strange turn of events, Sergio Perez had his first flying lap reinstated. That means he was ninth, but was still likely to need some improvement to get through to Q3.
The temperature drop as compared to Friday did not seem to help Ferrari, who was not able to replicate the fast pace shown in FP1 and FP2, but with new soft tyres, both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz easily made it through to Q3. There was a big surprise though: after that confusion over the deleted lap time, Sergio Perez failed to improve enough to make it through to Q3. That could be a big advantage for Ferrari in tomorrow’s race.
Ahead of the final shootout, Ferrari’s Mattia Binotto said from the pit wall: “Yeah, we are not comfortable at all, we are not happy yet but we need to continue building. We have two sets of new tyres for Q3 and both drivers have got two sets available and I think that will be the difference and we keep building. Having both drivers, Charles and Carlos, through puts us in good shape. I think we still focused first on Q3…. then we will think of the strategy for the race.”
With raindrops in the air, there was plenty of mystery going into the final 12 minutes of the qualifying session for the 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz ended up comfortably fastest after the first runs in Q3: the Spaniard delivered a clean lap for a 1:17.505, putting him almost half a second clear of Mercedes’ George Russell in second. The other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was third after a bit of a messy lap, with Lewis Hamilton fourth. After looking very strong in Q1 and Q2, Max Verstappen couldn’t find any grip and is only seventh, behind Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris!
This was one of the most wide open qualifying sessions we had seen for a while. The cars returned to the track for their final runs, with it extremely unclear what was going to unfold here, as it seemed that Max Verstappen suffered a power issue. But the big surprise cam from George Russell, who was able to set an incredible lap of 1:17.377 that puts him ahead of both of the Ferrari cars of Carlos Sainz of Charles Leclerc for tomorrow’s race. Lewis Hamilton aborted his final flying lap and ends up seventh, while Max Verstappen is 10th.
1) George Russell (Mercedes)
2) Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
3) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
4) Lando Norris (McLaren)
5) Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
6) Fernando Alonso (Alpine)
7) Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
8) Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)
9) Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
10) Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
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