With a flying lap time of 1m 15.372s, Charles Leclerc took pole position for the Lenovo Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix on his last new Soft compound, less than three-hundredths of a second clear to championship leader Oscar Piastri with McLaren.
The Australian teammate Lando Norris followed in third; the Mercedes of George Russell and Fernando Alonso with Aston Martin completed the top five on Saturday at the challenging Hungaroring circuit.
“Qualifying was extremely difficult today,” the 27-year-old poleman outlined. “Q1 and Q2 were really tricky. I was on the limit in both sessions. The grip kept changing throughout Q2. I was on the lower end of downforce, and when it started to rain, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the final session.
“In Q3, I knew I needed a clean lap to go for P3, but I never thought it was enough for pole. I’m really happy with my lap, and it’s probably the most unexpected pole position of my career.”
Using different downforce levels, Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton head into qualifying with four sets of new Soft tires each, the only compound used during qualifying, held under mixed weather conditions.
Q1 run on a dry track; however, in Q2, drops of rain fell, as well as the temperature (about ten degrees Celsius during the session), a trend that intensified as wind shifted direction into Q3, leading to slower lap times.
Norris went fastest to set the best time of the day in Q2 (1m 14.890s), but no one could run under the 1m15 in Q3.
The first pole position recorded by the Pracing Horse since last year’s Mexican Grand Prix represents the team’s 254 overall.
“It’s a big boost for the team. Everyone has been pushing very hard to bring upgrades and take steps in the right direction, so this result shows that we are doing something right,” Leclerc added.
Bidding to translate the pole into a triumph on Sunday, he commented: “Tomorrow, the start and turn 1 will be key. I will do everything to keep first place, and if we manage to keep the two McLarens behind at that point, it should make our job for the rest of the race a bit easier.”
Meanwhile, Hamilton will start the race in 12th place, disappointed after missing the cut in Q2 by just 15 thousandths of a second.
“As for tomorrow, we saw yesterday that we had a strong and consistent pace over a long run, even compared to McLaren,” assessed Fred Vasseur, Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal.
“For the race, we must focus on ourselves, have a good strategy, and the right approach for the tires. If we do that, we can have a good one as our race pace is generally stronger than our quali pace.”
Leclerc’s unexpected pole position, following the consistency shown by both McLaren drivers throughout all three free practice sessions, came at a racetrack where grid position is pivotal due to its narrow nature.
All in all, in 16 of the 39 editions held to this date at the Hungaroring, the pole sitter has surged to victory.
Nonetheless, the Monegasque is not alone; Alonso, who was forced to miss Free Practice 1 due to a lingering back injury, also impressed by securing the third row to start the race from the fifth position on the grid.
Addressing his performance, the 44-year-old Spaniard said: “It seems the layout and characteristics of this track suit our car much better, and we need to try to understand this.
“The wind direction changed in Q3 and made the track slower, so we couldn’t match the times of Q1 and Q2.
“We decided to run in the middle of the session in Q3 to avoid any other wind changes, and we were close to pole position, so I think this decision worked well for us.”
Aston Martin brought technical upgrades for the Hungarian Grand Prix; according to the FIA, the British team presents a “more aggressive” iteration of the front wing previously introduced at Spa, featuring more load and designed to work in harmony with the higher downforce rear wing to be used at the 14th round of the Formula 1 season.