Hungarian GP Qualifying: Norris and Piastri lock out the front row at the Hungaroring!

The qualifying session held at the Hungaroring gave McLaren fans a complete front row, which was missing from the 2012 Brazilian GP. The plan that Andrea Stella and his team have in mind is precisely to return to glories of that era: to do so, however, they will have to be more precise and clear-headed than what they have shown in the last race weekends. The Hungarian Grand Prix is ​​the first useful opportunity to demonstrate towards what kind of progress they're working hard at Woking...

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As always, after the final classification of this qualifying, let's analyze in detail what happened on the twisty Hungarian track:

McLaren dominance: the MCL38 emerges as soon as the track dries

Saturday in Hungary was marked by light intermittent rain, which although not forcing the drivers to switch to wet tyres, worsened track conditions, resulting in a grip reduction, also (and above all) due to the sudden drop of the asphalt temperature.

At McLaren, aware of the technical advantage currently held over their rivals, they intelligently thought of tackling Q1 and Q2 in a cautious manner, to minimize the risk of contact with the barriers due to the above-mentioned poor grip. Also for this reason, in the same two manches it was Hamilton and the two Ferraris who stood out... Whereas a competitive pace in mixed conditions was expected from the Englishman - we know how fearsome both Lewis and the W15 are - more surprising was observing the laptimes that Leclerc and Sainz were able to set, as they had their strength in the very high temperatures that had been recorder, for example, on Friday in FP1.

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But as soon as the asphalt dried completely, Lando Norris returned comfortably in first position, almost always accompanied by his teammate Piastri (in the end just at +0.022 s) and with a gap on the first non-McLaren pursuer (surprise surprise, Max Verstappen!) of around 0.2 s/lap. This is a very important outcome, especially from a development perspective, given that Red Bull arrived in Budapest with a truly extensive update package (only) on the RB20 of Max, leaving Perez with the task of performing a comparison with the old specification.

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Whereas in free practice we had seen an unusually small gap between Max and Checo - an indication that perhaps the novelties introduced weren't still perfectly "rooted" in the car, in qualifying we saw once again the classic "cycling" gap in favour of the Dutchman. Returning to the World Championship challenge against McLaren, not having been able to make a counter-overtaking (at least in terms of the potential of their RB20) must be a hard blow for Red Bull, given that they were - and are - aiming very much on the aerodynamic modifications with which Verstappen raced today.

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Obviously we're not talking about a definitive failure, also because Max's final gap from poleman Lando is only +0.046 s, also due to a - questionable - impeding by the Englishman on the Dutchman in the latter's best attempt in Q3. Net of all this, and excluding the understandable fluctuations of the gap in each flying lap, the real gap currently in favour of McLaren is closer to the two tenths per lap mentioned previously...

Trying to split the track according to the comparison between these two teams, the sector that "smiles" most at the World Champions is the middle one, the most twisty of the three: this is an indication of the high downforce produced by the RB20, which means - considering that the MCL38 has often shown that it can have even downforce more at its disposal - that the setup chosen by Red Bull contemplates highly loaded wings, with a consequent reduction in straight line speed.. But we'll come back to this aspect later on, because it could be crucial from a race perspective!

The hierarchies are being defined, with Mercedes and Ferrari one step behind McLaren and Red Bull

Behind the first three we find the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz (P4) and Charles Leclerc (P6), splitted by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton (P5). As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the ambitions of these three drivers - and not of George Russell, as we'll see later on in our analysis - gradually faded away as the track dried out and returned to its best grip conditions...

With the maximum grip available, in fact, the struggles that Mercedes and especially Ferrari have compared to the current leaders in Formula 1 (a.k.a. McLaren and Red Bull) magnified, bringing the gap paid towards the latter close to the threshold of half a second per lap that we had already observed during free practice. As for Mercedes, let's not forget that the English-German team is coming off two consecutive victories in the last two races, the result respectively of a bit of luck (George Russell in Austria) and a clear superiority (Lewis Hamilton in Great Britain); here in Budapest, understandably, it was a bit difficult for the Brackley team's golden moment to continue, and in fact - at least for the moment - we're back to a situation similar to that of a few Grand Prix ago, however absolutely not deficitary for Toto Wolff and his team.

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At Ferrari, on the other hand, the period of technical confusion continues, but the good news is that the team from Maranello is not responding to these difficulties with the classic technical impasse that we have witnessed so many times in the past: in fact, with a timing truly worthy of note, a new floor has already arrived at the Hungaroring, with which they hope to mitigate the harmful porpoising that manifested once again following the Barcelona development package. Not that it is the cure-all, considering that on this track triggering the porpoising is difficult in itself, but with the introduction of the new component it will be possible to collect a lot of on-track data, thanks to which the chances of solving the issue could grow, especially where it could be triggered in a severe manner, as - for example - at Spa-Francorchamps!

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Today, between Sainz and Leclerc, the Spaniard was certainly the fastest, who since becoming his teammate at Ferrari (2021) always seems to have the upper hand when the car is not in a position to fight for pole positions and victories; conversely, Charles has repeatedly proven himself to be unbeatable when the car is at its best. It will be interesting to see what the comparison with a champion of Lewis Hamilton's caliber will tell us starting from next season...

At the back a disastrous Saturday for Perez (P16) and Russell (P17)

The other "heroes" of Q3 are Alonso and Stroll on their Aston Martin, and Ricciardo and Tsunoda on their Visa CashApp RB, all from seventh to tenth position respectively. The Japanese driver from the Red Bull sister team had a rather violent crash in Q3, when - after going wide in Turn 5 - his car's plank hit a step on the escape route, ending up thrown against the barriers on the left side.

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Yuki did not report any physical problems, while his VCARB 01 will have to be repaired in view of tomorrow's race: the driver is not to blame for the dynamics of the accident, while the organizers of the Grand Prix bear some responsibility: I find it unacceptable that in 2024 there are literally traps like the step that misled Tsunoda, leading him into the barrier and bringing out the red flag 2:13 from the end of the last qualifying manche.

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In the midfield solid performance from Nico Hulkenberg (P11) and the two Williams of Albon (P13) and Sargeant (P14), with the two good at taking their FW46 beyond the potential available to them. The German from Haas, however, continues his magical moment after two points finishes in the last two races, and today he almost eliminated Hamilton in Q2, finishing just at +0.010 s behind the Englishman!

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Only in P16 and P17 do we find the two disappointments of these qualifying session, especially thinking about the cars at their disposal: we're referring to Sergio Perez and George Russell respectively. Let's start immediately by saying that between the two, the most blameless is certainly the Englishman from Mercedes, who paid dearly for a trivial mistake made by his pitwall in the final minutes of Q1... While the track was going towards a transitory phase of less intense rain, the Mercedes garage refuelled George's W15 with enough fuel to allow him just one flying lap, where he would certainly have needed a second attempt. This error actually ruined his qualifying session early on, condemning him to a race that could be defined as an uphill one...

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Sergio Perez, on the other hand, hitting the wall in Turn 4 makes another mistake in the same  moment in which the Red Bull management is defining his future: it matters little that the Mexican driver signed a two-year contract renewal a few weeks ago, in the case his team decides that the level guaranteed by one of its drivers doesn't meet their requirements. In the past we have seen sudden dismissals operated by Helmut Marko, who in fact has made no secret of looking around to understand who will drive alongside Verstappen: the candidates at the moment are Ricciardo, Lawson and Tsunoda, in decreasing order of likelihood of replacing Checo.

High tyre degradation and difficult overtakes: what to expect from the race at the Hungaroring?

From a race perspective, the Hungarian Grand Prix has always been an event in which the traditional 70 laps scheduled offer few overtaking opportunities: the very twisty layout of the track sees only the start-finish straight as a potential attack point, even if in In the past we've also seen fights in the following DRS zone, on the downhill short straight leading to Turn 2. In any case, thinking about the challenge at the top, we were talking about how Red Bull chose a high downforce aerodynamic setup, which - as mentioned - could put Verstappen under pressure in the hypothetical comeback that the World Champion will want to complete against the two McLarens.

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With a lower straight line speed, in fact, it's plausible that Max could remain stuck behind Piastri and/or Norris even having a superior race pace in hand: the problem, for him, is that even on a strategic level there would be little to do, as the Woking team will race in "2 against 1" conditions against Red Bull. What we're hypothesizing could seriously become the key to win the race under normal circumstances, determining its outcome even more than tyre degradation, expected to be high if the temperatures were to rise to a range close to what was seen on Friday during free practices.

We will discover this, and much more, starting from 4.00 pm CET tomorrow, when the lights will go out and the race of this Hungarian Grand Prix will start!

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