The qualifying laps for the Hungarian GP, the last GP to be held before the season break in Formula 1, have been completed. The qualifying laps were different from what we’re used to this season, and a surprise pole position winner emerged.
In fact, in the third practice session held in the morning, Williams’ Nicholas Latifi, who is not known for his steering, was the fastest driver and the rain in that session seemed to herald that we would see interesting qualifying laps. There was no rain in the qualifying rounds, but there were a lot of interesting things.
A Mercedes in the first pocket
The first session of the qualifying rounds went relatively normally, with none of the favorites having any problems at this stage. 4-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who opened an Instagram account recently and announced that he would bid farewell to the tracks at the end of the season, was eliminated in the first session. Other names eliminated in this session were Tsunoda, Albon, Gasly and Latifi.
The surprise of the second session was that Sergio Perez from the Red Bull team was eliminated in 11th place. He was followed by Zhou, Magnussen, Stroll and Mick Schumacher. Perez complained of wasting time as he fell behind Magnussen on the time lap.
In the last session of the qualifying rounds, surprises followed each other. Championship leader and defending champion Max Verstappen, who had power problems, was able to take 10th place as the last of the session. Standing out with its high performance in slow corners, Ferrari had no problems and came to the last moments of the session with both drivers starting on the first line. In the last seconds of the session, Mercedes young driver George Russell achieved the first pole position victory of his career.
Starting tomorrow’s race, the grid layout will be as follows, unless there is a penalty or an engine change:
- Russell
- Sainz Jr.
- Leclerc
- Norris
- ocon
- alonso
- Hamilton
- Bottas
- Ricciardo
- Verstappen
- Perez
- zhou
- Magnussen
- Stroll
- Mick Schumacher
- Tsunoda
- albon
- Vettel
- Gasly
- Latifi
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