
Nico Rosberg achieved his 26th career pole position in a rain-affected qualifying session at the Hungaroring. The championship leader grabbed the P1 slot from his Mercedes team-mate in the final moment of Q3.
Lewis Hamilton held provisional pole after the initial runs in a dry Q3, and looked on course to seal the deal on his second run, but backed out as Fernando Alonso spun his McLaren at Turn 9 and brought out the yellow flags.
Rosberg was running behind Hamilton on track, and though there was a yellow for Rosberg at Turn 8, Alonso had got going again by the time Rosberg reached Turn 9.
While the first sector of Rosberg’s final flying lap was more then four tenths slower than Hamilton’s, he was fastest of all through the second sector on a rapidly improving track and stole P1 from Hamilton by less than two tenths of a second.
Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo also had to abort his final flyer and wound up third fastest, just 0.172 seconds slower than Hamilton in a session he called “crazy”.
Max Verstappen was fourth quickest, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Carlos Sainz, the McLaren pair of Alonso and Jenson Button, with Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India and the Williams of Valtteri Bottas completing the top ten.
Hamilton was fortunate to even make it through to Q3 after locking up and running wide at Turn 1 on his final Q2 lap.
On a rapidly drying track, the British Grand Prix winner tumbled down the order, but remained just inside the top ten as Romain Grosjean, Daniil Kvyat, Sergio Perez, Kimi Raikkonen, Esteban Gutierrez, and Felipe Nasr all missed the cut.
A twenty-minute rain delay and four red flags meant Q1 lasted well over an hour.
A second downpour shortly after an already rain delayed start caused the first stoppage, before Marcus Ericsson crashed at Turn 10, Felipe Massa at Turn 4 and finally Rio Haryanto – again at Turn 10 – all had crashes that prompted red flags. Q1 was eventually over despite a time of one minute, 18 seconds remaining on the clock after Haryanto’s incident.
“Aww f***ing hell, that’s really poor!” moaned Jolyon Palmer on team radio, as he became the biggest loser of the track position lottery and finished the session P17, having lapped inside the top ten in final practice.
Massa ended up P18, ahead of Kevin Magnussen – who began his final run on wets and aborted to switch to intermediates just before the final stoppage – Ericsson, Pascal Wehrlein and Haryanto.
So an incident-filled qualifying session which took two hours to settle the grid for the Hungaroring. Championship leader on pole, with his Mercedes team-mate and title rival alongside.

Qualifying standings, Hungarian Grand Prix:
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m19.965s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m20.108s
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m20.280s
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Renault 1m20.557s
5 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m20.874s
6 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m21.131s
7 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1m21.211s
8 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1m21.597s
9 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m21.823s
10 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m22.182s
11 Romain Grosjean Haas-Ferrari 1m24.941s
12 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m25.301s
13 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m25.416s
14 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m25.435s
15 Esteban Gutierrez Haas-Ferrari 1m26.189s
16 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1m27.063s
17 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m43.965s
18 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m43.999s
19 Kevin Magnussen Renault 1m44.543s
20 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1m46.984s
21 Pascal Wehrlein Manor-Mercedes 1m47.343s
22 Rio Haryanto Manor-Mercedes 1m50.189s


















