The rain arrived for qualifying, but just enough precipitation fell to cool the asphalt a bit and make the conditions a bit funny.
Regarding the tricky conditions, just a few things to note is that Q1 had barely started when several people were already reporting that they were experiencing raindrops. After the first fast laps, Lewis Hamilton was in the lead, with Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen “clinging” behind him. We were just starting to warm up to things when Sergio Perez came along and crushed Red Bull with another, ridiculous, childish mistake at F1 level, “in a teacher’s way”. Red flag… After a little over ten minutes of forced pause, Q1 continued, where there were surprises, plenty: Daniel Ricciardo, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton closed this stage in the top 3, while George Russell (!!) and the two Alpines and Guanyu Zhou were unable to continue.
In Q2, Verstappen, Piastri and Alonso were the standard for a long time. This later changed as the McLarens came up and won this stage with Norris. Behind him were the aforementioned Verstappen and Piastri, while the two Williams, the two Haas and Valtteri Bottas were forced to say goodbye.
The formula did not change after the first shots of Q3, Norris was at the top, followed by Verstappen and Piastri, but it was a big question whether the rain would be replenished? Meanwhile, Lando Norris continued to accelerate, as did Max Verstappen, but it was not enough for the latter to catch Oscar Piastri. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda suffered a scary accident, so the qualifying would have technically ended with a red flag… If it hadn't been for that one. Because with just over two minutes left, the field was released, but this led to an embarrassingly long wait. We saw a completely pointless interlude, which had no influence on the final result…
In the end, as we mentioned, the pole position went to Lando Norris ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lewis Hamilton. It is sure to be a thrilling Hungarian Grand Prix!
