@LewisHamilton claims #HungarianGP pole in @MercedesAMGF1 front-row lockout. #F1

Lewis Hamilton clinched his 101st career pole-position in qualifying at the Hungarian GP ahead of Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas and championship rival Max Verstappen.

 

 

The Mercedes and Red Bull drivers will start the race on alternate tyre strategies after Red Bull Racing’s Verstappen and team-mate Sergio Perez – who missed out on setting his Q3 flyer by a whisker as the the Red Bulls were stuck behind the slow-touring Mercedes drivers on the final warm-up tour – used the C4 red side-walled softer compounds to post their best efforts in Q2, where Hamilton and Bottas progressed on the mediums.

 

After Verstappen topped Q1 and Q2, Hamilton headed the times after the opening flying laps in Q3, with a 1:15.419, as his fellow title-contender was unable to match the Briton’s benchmark from the middle of proceedings.

 

The 0.565 deficit Verstappen faced to Hamilton left Bottas with the opportunity to move ahead into second place, which the Finn did.

 

Ahead of the final runs, Verstappen emerged on his garage right behind Hamilton, who toured very slowly down the pit-lane, early and then late in the final warm-up lap as he remained in-front of the Red Bull.

 

As the clocked ticked down due to the slow preparation-lap driving, Verstappen made it on the cusp to start his final flyer, whilst Perez missed out, but held onto fourth place on the grid.

 

But the slow warm-up tour tactic came-back to haunt the Silver Arrows in terms of it’s drivers improving on their second hot-laps, as Bottas, who lead team-mate Hamilton around, was unable to find any time along with the latter.

 

Whilst Verstappen found an improvement to set a 1:15.840, it was not enough to put him in-front of either Mercedes driver, with Hamilton’s pole position secured ahead of his team-mate.

 

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified in-front of McLaren’s Lando Norris and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for fifth place, with Alpine F1 Team pairing Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso taking eighth and ninth respectively.

 

Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel completed the top ten after running a different Q3 strategy, setting a 1:16.750 on his solo tour in the middle of the final qualifying stage.

 

Q2 saw Verstappen go fastest after posting his best effort on the softs, Vettel’s final improvement eliminated McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo, who’s personal best on his last hot-lap in the middle stage was not enough for the Australian to make Q3.

 

The other Aston Martin of Lance Stroll ended qualifying in 12th place in-front of Alfa Romeo Racing duo Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi – who was handed a reprimand for impeding Gasly in the earlier FP3 session, whilst his team was slapped with a $5,000 fine for the incident where Giovinazzi clipped Strolls right-rear tyre after exiting his garage in final practice.

 

The other driver eliminated from Q2 was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who lost the rear of his SF21 racer running through the last corner on his initial flyer in the first segment, as the Ferrari slid sideways across the run-off area and whacked the barriers side-on.

 

The Spaniard was able to drive away when the red flags were waved, but soon was forced to stop after his front wing got stuck underneath the car.

 

Although Sainz did move away again after sitting in his car for a few minutes, but the Spaniard eventually turned the engine off and hopped out of his SF21 racer and wound up 15th after Sainz appeared to impede Gasly at turn one in the latter stages of Q1, with the Ferrari driver jolting onto the kerbs to avoid the fast-approaching AT02

 

The first qualifying stage, AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda posted a personal best on his last hot-lap, but was unable to improve and was eliminated, along with Williams Racing’s George Russell, who lost his strong record of escaping the opening segment at every Grand Prix so far in 2021.

 

Russell looked to run deep at the second corner and then went wide exiting the turn six and seven chicane, sending up dust in the air as the Briton pushed hard on his final flying lap, but ended up Tsunoda in 17th on the grid.

 

The other Williams of Nicholas Latifi also set a personal best effort to take 18th as Haas F1 Team’s Nikita Mazepin came in 19th.

 

The second Haas VF-21 entry of Mick Schumacher did not take part in qualifying due to his earlier FP3 shunt, with the Kannapolis-Banbury outfit unable to get the car ready in time after changing it’s gearbox to get the German out to post a time in the opening segment.

 

You can see the full Formula 1 Rolex Magyar Nagydij (Hungarian Grand Prix) 2021 Qualifying Results Classification here at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1073/hungary/qualifying.html

 

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2021 Hungarian GP Qualifying – The Top Three

 

 

Pole Position – Lewis Hamilton, #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance, 1:15.419:

“Amazing qualifying lap, amazing team work from everyone Valtteri included to try and push the car forward. I don’t mind the booing, it just fuels me.”

 

2nd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team, F1 W12 EQ Performance, 1:15.734:

“In Q2 I lost the rhythm slightly when we had to use the mediums tyres so it wasn’t easy, and I had a small lock up [in Q3]. Tomorrow will be exciting, all to play for and it should be a good battle. I’m looking forward to it!”

 

3rd Place – Max Verstappen, #33, Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16B, 1:15.840:

“The whole weekend we’ve been a bit behind and it showed in qualifying. We’re still there in P3 and we’ll see what we can do but yeah, not what I want. The grip is higher on there [soft] tyres so it will give us an opportunity off the line.”

 

In the earlier FP3 session it was Hamilton on top of the time-sheets in-front of Red Bull’s Verstappen who was second, Mercedes team-mate Bottas in third and the two Ferrari’s of Sainz and Leclerc who rounded out the top five. You can read the full Formula 1 Magyar Nagydij (Hungarian Grand Prix) 2021 Free Practice Results Classification here at the link: https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2021/races/1073/hungary/practice-3.html

 

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#HungarianGP FP2: @ValtteriBottas leads @MercedesAMGF1 one-two. #F1

#HungarianGP FP1: @Max33Verstappen heads time-sheets ahead of @ValtteriBottas. #F1

#Formula1 #HungarianGrandPrix 2021 Race Preview. #F1 #HungarianGP