F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

McLaren secured a shock result in today’s qualifying session of the Hungarian Grand Prix with Lando Norris heading a front row lock-out for the papaya team. F1Technical’s trackside reporter Balazs Szabo reports on the qualifying session of the Budapest F1 round.

McLaren has been looking mighty quick all through the weekend, and their drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri delivered when it really mattered.

Perez crashes out, Russell endures shock exit - Q1

Following scorching weather on Friday that saw ambient temperatures reaching over 35 degrees Celsius and track temperatures exceeding 59 degrees Celsius, Saturday’s qualifying session took place in tricky conditions.

With cloud cover bringing drops of rain in the hour ahead of the session – cooling the temperatures to around 26 degrees Celsius – the showers had intensified at the Hungaroring in the run-up to Q1 before easing off when the lights went green.

The opening qualifying segment saw Sergio Perez spin off into the barriers after losing the rear of his RB20 on the slippery kerbs. The session was halted to clear the stricken Red Bull.

When the session was re-started, George Russell found himself in danger. The Briton improved to P, but he was later pushed down to P17.

Knocked out: Sergio Perez, George Russell, Zhou Guanyu, Esteban Ocon, Pierre Gasly.

Hamilton nearly misses final qualifying segment - Q2

The second qualifying segment kicked off in fairly standard fashion. Carlos Sainz had the track for himself which he used to set a banker lap on a used set of soft Pirelli tyres.

The session was topped by Lando Norris who put in a mesmerizing effort to set a 1m15.540s. Max Verstappen finished behind the Briton in P2, from Oscar Piastri in P3 and Carlos Sainz in P4.

With Perez and Russell having failed to make their way out of Q1, there were two further places in Q3 to snatch away. Interestingly, Aston Martin and Visa Cash RB drivers made the cut into the final qualifying segment after having struggled for pace in recent months.

Lewis Hamilton managed to make the cut into Q3, but his best lap was only one hundredth of a second quicker than what Haas driver Nico Hulkenberg managed.

Knocked out: Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Alexander Albon, Logan Sargeant, Kevin Magnussen,

McLaren impresses in final segment - Q3

Lando Norris set the quickest lap in Q3 with a 1m15.227s, only fractionally beating his team-mate Oscar Piastri. Reigning champion Max Verstappen put his heavily-upgraded RB20 in P3 with only half a tenth adrift of Norris.

Ferrari has endured an up-and-down weekend so far in Budapest with showing encouraging speed in several sessions, but struggling for pace in others. Ultimately, Carlos Sainz took an impressive fourth place for tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

His team-mate Charles Leclerc was unfortunate in Q3 as he was the only driver to miss out a second flying lap on fresh tyres due to a late red flag interruption, and thus ending up down in P6.

Lewis Hamilton took fifth in a session which saw him almost miss out on the cut into Q3.

Running several upgrades this weekend, Aston Martin had a strong session with Fernando Alonso heading his team mate Lance Stroll. The Spaniard and the Canadian took seventh and eighth respectively.

Daniel Ricciardo was sensational in the opening qualifying session, but he was also affected by the late red flag, meaning that he ended up ninth on the grid.

His team-mate Yuki Tsunoda had a hefty crash in the RB out of Turn 5. The Japanese driver was thankfully able to walk away from the incident, but his VCARB01 picked up heavy damage.