Round 12/23: Review of the Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying

Formula 1 is a sport where the best engineered cars dominate week in and week out. The regulations for 2022 have promised us for closer racing between the teams. One and a half years later it is finally time that we can start seeing the results of these new regulations. The last couple of qualifying sessions have been very close with Max Verstappen snatching the pole position from the brink of nowhere but it was Lewis Hamilton who has taken his 9th Hungarian Grand Prix pole position by 3 thousands of a second.

With upgrades scheduled for Red Bull, coming into the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend it was not clear if Red Bull had the advantage that they have had for the last 20 races. Granted, the race pace of the Redbull racing team has proven superior in almost all the races so far in 2023, it remained neck and neck in the qualifying sessions. Added to that, the setup of the Redbull had minimal time to be optimized with rain and crashes in FP1 and FP2. One of Lewis Hamilton or Lando Norris were the favorites along with Max Verstappen and it was the 7 time world champion who has taken his 104th pole position.

Max Verstappen had taken the other position on the front row with Lando Norris and a yet again impressive Oscar Piastri taking the second row. It was Zhou Guanyu who rounded up the Top 5 with an impressive lap on the softs. Let us delve into what happened during the hour long qualifying in detail by starting with Q1.

Q1

Hungarian Grand Prix brought to us the newest of the qualifying format for a trial run where in the teams were allowed to go out on only Hards in Q1, Mediums in Q2 and Softs in Q3. Judging by the intensity of the qualifying session this weekend, it is fair to say the format was a resounding success in keeping all the teams in play. However, more such trials are required before ascertaining the effectiveness of the format.

With track evolution playing a crucial factor in Hungaroring, the second run was going to be much more important than the first but having a good banker lap in the first run would help in easing the nerves and for pushing that much harder in the second run. Q1 started with Valtteri Bottas setting the fastest time in the 1st runs only to be usurped by Max Verstappen just before the beginning of the 2nd runs.

During the 2nd runs, it was again an Alphatauri that had topped the timing charts with Zhou Guanyu taking the top spot in the closing stages of Q1 by beating Max Verstappen by the barest of the margins. Daniel Ricciardo had a triumphant return with a P15 by beating his team mate Yuki Tsunado by one-hundredth of a second thereby enabling an Alphatauri into Q2 for the first time in four races. The Williams of Albon and Sargent could n’t replicate their feet of making into the Q2 unlike Silverstone 2 weeks ago. George Russell got stuck in traffic and could n’t get a clean lap and missed out on a Q2 appearance and a potential pole position. From winning the pole position last year to finishing 18 now is not ideal for the Brit & Mercedes and Toto Wolff had shown his displeasure clearly after that. The last one to be out in Q1 was Kevin Magnussen who finished 19th. It was again a dismal performance from the 30 year old compared to his team mate who made it to Q3 once again.

Q2

Q2 was entirely on Mediums and it was all about whether atleast one of the Ferraris would make it into Q3. It was Carlos Sainz who missed out on a Q3 appearance by 2 thousands of a second to Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc managed to make it into the top 6 just in the nick of time.

The first runs in Q2 were dominated by the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri after Max Verstappen had his lap time (P1) deleted for track limits violation. Sergio Perez had missed out on 5 straight Q3’s where his team mate eventually took pole position and was under immense pressure coming into this weekend. Red bull took a decision to send him out first in both the runs of Q2 and Q3 and he had no issues whatsoever in Q2 and was at P3 during the initial run. Lance Stroll had trouble with track limits too and had his time deleted. Although he tried doing a second run on his initial mediums but there was absolutely no life in those tires for a rerun.

For the second runs and ultimately for a spot in Q3 it was an uphill battle between the teams. Alpine finished on 12th and 15th with Ocon having another poor qualifying session and Gasly compounded Alpine’s issues by having his time deleted for track limits. Ricciardo took P13 and Lance Stroll took P14 to round up the spots for a Q2 exit. Valtteri Bottas took an impressive P4 in Q2 while Hulkenberg treated us with another impressive Q3 result with P7 on board. Zhou Guanyu was the other surprise at P9 this weekend and would go on to take an eventual P5, the best qualifying position in his career.

Q3

The first laps of Q3 panned out in the usual self with Max Verstappen taking provisional pole with 0.126 seconds margin over Lewis Hamilton and 0.292 seconds over Lando Norris. All three drivers had scope for improvement on the softs and it was going to be a one lap shoot out at the end.

Mercedes held back Lewis Hamilton for as long as possible to give him the best grip on the track. Max Verstappen left the pits earlier than usual but could n’t improve on his earlier time. He had a yellow Sector 1 and 3 and in the end fell short of his time set earlier in Q3. Lando Norris tried his best to beat Max Verstappen but fell short by 0.088 seconds and it seemed like Max Verstappen had done sufficient to take a pole position once again, would have been his 6th in a row. However, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton had other plans in store and as Toto rightly pointed out earlier, the Mercedes were definitely quicker on the soft tyres. By the barest of margins, Lewis Hamilton grabbed his 104th pole position and his 9th at Hungaroring.

Sergio Perez disappointed once again albeit in Q3 this time by finishing 9th. The Alfa Romeo’s of Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas sandwiched the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc in P6. Fernando Alonso had another anonymous weekend finishing at P8 and Nico Hulkenberg finished in P10.

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