Toward the end of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, if you’re like me, you probably uttered the words, “Where did that come from?” Charles Leclerc finally broke Ferrari’s drought in Budapest, securing the team’s first grand prix pole position of the season, following Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time in Sprint qualifying in China.
It’s certainly been a long time coming, but also didn’t feel like it was particularly on the cards heading into the session, even if Leclerc was often the nearest challenger to McLaren so far this weekend. The end of Q2 really created doubt, with the two McLaren drivers the only cars able to dip below the 1m15s barrier, and Leclerc over half a second adrift in sixth.
That session also saw Hamilton eliminated, so Leclerc beating everyone just a few minutes later was a surprise.
“Today, I don’t understand anything in Formula 1!” Leclerc said as soon as he got out of the car. “Honestly, the whole qualifying has been extremely difficult. When I say extremely difficult, it’s not exaggerating. It was super, super difficult. It was difficult for us to get to Q2, it was difficult for us to get to Q3.
“In Q3 the conditions changed a little bit; everything became a lot trickier, and I knew I just had to do a clean lap to target third. At the end of the day, it’s pole position. I definitely did not expect that.
“The conditions changed, which made everything very tricky, and at the end we are on pole position. Honestly, I have no words. Yeah, it’s probably one of the best pole positions I’ve ever had because it’s the most unexpected for sure.”
Leclerc was not alone in his disbelief, as championship leader Oscar Piastri similarly could not sum up how the session got away from McLaren so quickly.
“Depends where you’re sat,” Piastri admitted. “If you’re where Charles is, [it’s] fantastic. If you’re where I’m sat, bizarre and somewhat frustrating, but I think the conditions completely changed, and it was just weird.
“My first lap felt terrible because I was pushing too much, kind of with the wind direction from the first two sessions in mind. I felt like I did a better job on the second lap, managing expectations, and it was even worse.
“A bizarre session, but I need to look back and see what differences it made. Things definitely felt more tricky for myself as well in Q3, but I think for everybody it would have been difficult, so that’s not our excuse.”
Piastri was the only driver not to improve on their second runs in Q3 and ended up just 0.026s off Leclerc, while Lando Norris found a bit more time but was still unable to climb higher than third, 0.041s away from pole. It was remarkably close, but also a significant turnaround from Q2. “I’ll just copy and paste [Piastri’s comments],” Norris added. “Exactly the same. Q2 felt very good, felt confident to improve. Into Q3, aiming for a similar lap time, similar limits, and just felt pretty dreadful.
“Same things. I wasn’t surprised that I was a 15.4s in the first run, but in the second lap, it’s just hard to know how much more to push or not push. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s a much better lap,’ and I was 15.4s again – similar thing.
“The wind has such big effects on the car when you’re driving. It’s quite easy for it to be a half a second swing. Frustrating because we definitely seem to have a good gap, but in Q3 it seemed to drift away from us as a team more than it did for others.”
While everyone expected McLaren to be atop the pile as usual, Andrea Stella says the rapid change in conditions caught everyone out. Joe Portlock/Getty Images
One big question remains – why? The answer appears to be twofold. One – the gap to Leclerc was not as big as it appeared in Q2, with the Ferrari driver making a mistake on his best lap at Turn 4 and losing time that might have made him seem more of a threat, or at least closer, heading into the shootout for pole position. The other relates to the dynamic that the two McLaren drivers are facing as they fight each other for a world championship.
“I think it’s an interesting [conundrum] in terms of understanding of how things go for a Formula 1 car,” McLaren team principal Andrea Stella explained. “Because definitely we had a significant change of conditions.
“You can see in the immediate data a steep change in terms of wind direction, wind intensity, temperature, humidity – everything changed. Everyone from Q2 – up until then we were pretty competitive; we definitely put together strong laps – from Q2 to Q3, everyone went slower.
“We went slower by about half a second on average. Actually, we simulated the change of conditions in our simulations, and it gives a little bit less than that, but about four tenths of a second. But Ferrari and Leclerc managed to actually go faster.
“The track was definitely slower. I think for Lando and Oscar, after they had seen in the first run that conditions had changed – that the grip wasn’t what they expected, that every corner was going to be a bit unpredictable, therefore the lap time didn’t come – I think in the second set they needed to be a bit cautious because obviously when you race for the championship, you want to make sure that you are there.
“I think this is a slightly different approach for Charles. I think he just went for it, like, ‘I don’t think I have much to lose here,’ and it paid off. This is a credit and merit to a very good execution by Ferrari and Charles.”
Stella’s theory would also account for how close other cars were able to get, with the entire top six – also comprising George Russell, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll – covered by 0.126s at the end of qualifying. Perhaps it was a one-off, the unique byproduct of such an unexpected change of track and weather conditions, and McLaren will pull clear once again in race trim on Sunday, but Norris is wary that the one car ahead of them both has been the most competitive opposition in four of the past six races.
“I think we always have, at least in the race, a bit more of an advantage,” Norris acknowledged. “Our main competitor over the last four, five races has been Charles and it’s been the Ferrari. If there was anyone else that’s going to be on pole today, it was going to be Charles, and if there’s anyone that’s going to make our life tough tomorrow, it’s going to be the same guy.”
