Championship leader Lewis Hamilton achieved his 47th career pole position in Formula 1 with a commanding performance at the Hungering. Fastest in every session to take his fifth P1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
His Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg struggled to match his rival’s pace and had to settle with second position. But half a second adrift is a major defeat.
Rosberg complained about the handling of his car throughout the different stages of qualifying and couldn’t recover sufficiently to put up much of a fight.
Hamilton and Rosberg were separated by 0.358 seconds after the first runs in Q3, and the German ended up over half a second adrift of Hamilton, who set the fastest lap of the weekend so far on his final effort to claim his fifth career pole in Hungary.
The expected close fight for best of the rest behind Mercedes materialised, as less than half a second covered Ferrari, Red Bull and Williams in Q2.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel ended up taking third on the grid, but was just 0.035 seconds clear of his former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull.
Kimi Raikkonen finished up 0.246 seconds further back in fifth, while Valtteri Bottas took sixth for Williams.
Daniil Kvyat lines up on row four with Felipe Massa, just ahead of Max Verstappen’s Toro Rosso, which only made one run in Q3.
Romain Grosjean’s Lotus rounded out the top ten, over half a second adrift of the next fastest car.
Neither Force India made it through to the top ten shootout, along with Carlos Sainz and Pastor Maldonado.
Hulkenberg and Sainz were less than a tenth away from Grosjean’s tenth position Lotus in Q2, while Perez was almost six tenths further back in P13.
McLaren headed into qualifying hoping to challenge for a place in the top ten, but could do no better than P15 and P16 after both drivers encountered technical trouble.
Fernando Alonso made it through to Q2, but stopped at the entry to the pitlane during his first run, bringing out the red flags and ending his session early.
As for his team-mate Jenson Button, an issue with the ERS deployment meant the McLaren driver missing out on the Q2 cut by lapping just over a tenth of a second shy of Sainz’s Toro Rosso.
Button estimated his problem cost him 0.3 seconds on his final flying lap.
The 2009 world champion joined the Saubers and Manors in dropping out during the first phase of qualifying.
Felipe Nasr felt he “lost it in the last two corners” and finished up 0.154 seconds adrift of Sauber team-mate Marcus Ericsson, who felt he drove a good final flying lap in the C34.
Roberto Merhi comfortably out-qualified his team-mate Will Stevens by 0.533 seconds, as the Manor cars filled their usual place on the final row of the grid.
So another front row lock-out for Mercedes. Five pole positions in a row from Lewis Hamilton at this twisty, tight circuit. The championship leader is super fast around the Hungaroring and is the favourite to take victory come race day.
Hungarian Grand Prix, qualifying positions:
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m22.020s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m22.595s
3 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m22.739s
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1m22.774s
5 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m23.020s
6 Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 1m23.222s
7 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull-Renault 1m23.332s
8 Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 1m23.537s
9 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso-Renault 1m23.679s
10 Romain Grosjean Lotus-Mercedes 1m24.181s
11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m23.826s
12 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso-Renault 1m23.869s
13 Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 1m24.461s
14 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Mercedes 1m24.609s
15 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Honda 1m24.563s
16 Jenson Button McLaren-Honda 1m24.739s
17 Marcus Ericsson Sauber-Ferrari 1m24.843s
18 Felipe Nasr Sauber-Ferrari 1m24.997s
19 Roberto Merhi Marussia-Ferrari 1m27.416s
20 Will Stevens Marussia-Ferrari 1m27.949s
Mercedes racer Nico Rosberg admitted that he was ‘all over the place’ during qualifying at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the news story.
Nico Rosberg said his Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session was “all over the place” after he was comfortably beaten by Mercedes Formula 1 team-mate Lewis Hamilton to pole position.
Hamilton defeated Rosberg by half a second to take his fifth Hungarian GP pole, and Rosberg admitted afterwards he could not explain his performance.
“Qualifying went to plan, I just didn’t find the pace,” said Rosberg.
“It has been up and down all weekend for some unexplained reason.
“It was a bit all over the place in qualifying. I just wasn’t happy and I don’t understand it.
“It was a bit inconsistent, it’s difficult to explain. I don’t know.”
Rosberg added his car balance is “for the race”, while polesitter Hamilton feels he is having one of his best F1 weekends.
“In terms of how this weekend has gone so far, I’m incredibly happy,” said the reigning world champion.
“So far, it is one of the best I’ve had. I can’t remember having a performance like this.
“Since I have been coming here [Hungary], I have always had good experiences.
“It’s not done on a Saturday, and there is lots of work to do tomorrow.
“It’s a long way to Turn 1 [after the start], and the race is incredibly tough technically and physically.
“But I feel confident in the team and the car and I hope we can convert it tomorrow.”
Fernando Alonso has questioned Formula 1’s rules that prevented him from returning to qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after his McLaren again ground to a halt.
With the McLaren-Honda partnership targeting a place in the top 10 for what would have been the first time this season, Alonso’s bid ended when his car shut down at the entry to the pitlane at the Hungaroring a few minutes into Q2.
Alonso initially attempted to push the car himself before being assisted by marshals and then mechanics from his own team, only to be told upon returning to the garage his efforts were in vain.
“I got lucky because I had some help, but when I arrived to the garage they told me I was not allowed to go back out again,” said Alonso.
“The rules say the car has to arrive by itself into the garage, so it was a lot of effort for nothing.
“It’s a little bit of a strange rule because we’ve seen so many times a car arriving on a crane and starting again the session.
“For me, [the car problem] was the wrong time, the wrong moment.
“It was something electrical, some connector, the power went off and that was a shame.
“We’ve been quite competitive all weekend, more or less in the top 10 in all the [practice] sessions, so it had been a good weekend for the team.”
Alonso will now start 15th, with team-mate Jenson Button 16th as the Briton missed out on a place in Q2 by a tenth of a second due to the ERS failing to deploy at the start of his final hot lap.
“We got the best out of the car in qualifying, in terms of the balance of the car it felt good, but I didn’t have any deployment all the way down the straight,” said Button.
“It’s quite a lot of power, over three tenths of lap time, so a massive amount before you have even arrived at Turn 1.
“It was OK after then. We were just unlucky I guess because we have never seen anything like it before.
“It’s is a tough one. We didn’t see this one coming. We’ll learn from it and hopefully it won’t be an issue again.”
Source: Autosport.com
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel expects a fight with his former team Red Bull Racing come race day. Autosport.com has the details.
Sebastian Vettel says he is expecting a strong challenge from his former Formula 1 team Red Bull in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix after pipping Daniel Ricciardo to third on the grid.
The Ferrari driver finished just 0.035s ahead of Ricciardo in qualifying as Red Bull continued the good form it demonstrated in the last race at Silverstone.
“Red Bull have made a step closer to ultimately Mercedes,” said Vettel.
“If you look at the gap they had and the gap they have now, they are closer.
“It was evident in Silverstone so we expected they would have strong weekend and we expect them to be strong tomorrow.
“But we managed to out-qualify them which means we are quicker.
“We knew it would be tight, especially with Red Bull but we managed to stay ahead.
“It was good for today but for tomorrow, there is a lot of work to be done trying to defend that third place.”
Vettel’s team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was consistent in qualifying, securing fifth on the grid having also achieved the position in the first two segments of the session.
The Finn, who lost time with a technical problem in final practice and was unable to do a qualifying simulation, felt he should have been higher up the grid but remained positive for Sunday.
“We are third and fifth so I don’t think it was a disaster,” said Raikkonen.
“We missed time in the morning because of an issue so it was a bit unknown for qualifying.
“It wasn’t too bad but I should have been higher up.
“Mercedes will be strong, but we will try to be second best if we can.
“At least we are not on the inside [of the grid], I can try and get a good start and see what happens from there.”