Leclerc edges out Piastri and Norris for shock pole position in Hungary

Charles Leclerc grabbed pole position in dramatic circumstances at the end of Saturday’s Qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, pulling a lap out of the bag to beat McLaren pair Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.

After drops of rain in Q2, and with track conditions appearing to fall away, Leclerc produced a stunning time of 1m 15.372s on his final Q3 lap to overhaul previous session leaders Piastri and Norris by a matter of thousandths.

George Russell was another driver to impress amid dropping temperatures and rising wind levels, putting his Mercedes fourth, while Aston Martin built on their strong practice pace to take P5 and P6 with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll respectively.

Kick Sauber also had more reasons to celebrate with Gabriel Bortoleto’s run to seventh – the Brazilian’s final lap enough to beat reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen, who faced a tricky session aboard his Red Bull.

Following his points finish in Belgium last time out, Liam Lawson’s upward trajectory continued with a fine drive to ninth, just ahead of rookie team mate Isack Hadjar in what represented a double top-10 result for the Racing Bulls squad.

Lewis Hamilton was the biggest name to drop out in Q2 after another tough Qualifying run – the seven-time World Champion sighing “every time” on the radio as he ended up 12th, between Haas’ Ollie Bearman and Williams’ Carlos Sainz.

Kimi Antonelli experienced troubles of his own, having narrowly missed the Q3 cut in 11th and then lost a handful of places due to a deleted lap time for exceeding track limits. It leaves him 15th on the grid, just behind Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

After a stronger weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, where he reached Q3, Yuki Tsunoda returned to dropping out in Q1 – the Japanese racer taking 16th position over the other Alpine and Haas machines of Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon respectively.

Nico Hulkenberg and Alex Albon sat above the Q1 drop zone following their initial Qualifying runs, but could not replicate the late-session gains of their Sauber and Williams team mates en route to the back row for Sunday’s Grand Prix.

AS IT HAPPENED

Q1 – Piastri leads Alonso as Qualifying begins

Following Norris’ clean sweep on Friday and Piastri’s strong start on Saturday, attention soon turned to Qualifying, which began under overcast skies but with air and track temperatures remaining high – and rain crucially staying away for the time being.

The entire field unsurprisingly bolted on the soft tyres for the opening Q1 runs, which brought the first moment of drama when Sainz locked up heavily under braking for Turn 1 and had to navigate the rest of his lap with flat-spotted tyres.

Once every driver had put a banker on the board, Piastri sat at the top of the timesheets with a 1m 15.554s, despite running over the gravel at the exit of Turn 12, with Russell and Antonelli following in their Mercedes cars from Norris, Hamilton and Alonso.

At the other end of the order, Sainz was in the drop zone after that compromised opener, along with Tsunoda, Gasly and Haas duo Bearman and Ocon – while Verstappen was only just above the cut mark in 13th amid ongoing struggles for Red Bull.

Aston Martin were first to make a move in the closing minutes, leading to a new P1 time from Alonso on a 1m 15.281s and a rise to P4 for Stroll, before their rivals returned to the track and set about finding gains – Ocon reporting that a screw was stuck on his tyre.

A flurry of green and purple sector times ended with Piastri reclaiming the top spot via a 1m 15.211s, from Alonso, a similarly high-flying Hadjar and Norris, with Leclerc keeping his cool amid some late pressure to rise from the drop zone all the way up to fifth place.

While Sainz and Bearman got themselves out of danger with their final laps to the chequered flag, the same could not be said for Tsunoda, Gasly and Ocon, who all fell at the first Qualifying hurdle alongside Hulkenberg and Albon.

After the segment, which also saw Bortoleto catch the eye in sixth, and Verstappen make it through in a low-key 11th, Antonelli and Russell were both noted for potentially failing to follow the Race Director’s instructions regarding maximum delta time.

Knocked out: Tsunoda, Gasly, Ocon, Hulkenberg, Albon

Q2 – Norris goes quickest, Hamilton and Antonelli out

In the break between Q1 and Q2, which featured an extra couple of minutes to allow marshals to clear loose gravel at Turn 12, the clouds appeared to grow darker and, by the time the green light switched on at the end of the pit lane, spots of rain had arrived.

“Expect the best conditions at the end of session,” Verstappen was told by his engineer as the remaining 15 drivers pushed to get some initial Q2 times on the board with soft tyres – Norris going quickest on a 1m 14.890s from Piastri, Alonso, Stroll, Hadjar and Bearman.

Russell, the aforementioned Verstappen, Lawson and Leclerc held the final top-10 spots after those runs, leaving Hamilton, Sainz, Bortoleto, Antonelli and Colapinto – who had a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits at Turn 9 – with work to do.

Across those second runs, which again saw Alonso and Stroll go early and involved a massive queue between their rivals to get out of the pits, there were some big disappointments on the cards as both Hamilton and Antonelli missed the Q3 cut.

“Every time, every time,” lamented 12th-placed Hamilton over the radio, with Antonelli similarly dejected after winding up 11th but then falling to 15th due to a track limits violation. Bearman, Sainz and Colapinto were the other three drivers to drop out.

Norris remained fastest from Piastri despite neither of the McLaren drivers improving, from Stroll, Russell, Alonso and Leclerc, while Verstappen squeezed through to Q3 in eighth around the Racing Bulls of Hadjar and Lawson and Bortoleto.

Knocked out: Bearman, Sainz, Hamilton, Colapinto, Antonelli

Q3 – Leclerc stuns to beat the McLarens

With further rain continuing to hold off, but temperatures dropping slightly and wind levels rising, Piastri landed the first blow of the pole position shootout by clocking a 1m 15.398s – putting him just under a tenth clear of team mate Norris.

Russell and Mercedes also appeared more competitive in the cooler conditions, going third over Alonso, Verstappen, Leclerc, Lawson and Bortoleto, while Stroll lost a time for exceeding track limits and Hadjar bided his time in the garage.

Aston Martin once again left the pit lane early for their final runs, with Alonso shooting to P2 (just 0.083s behind provisional polesitter Piastri) and Stroll moving up to fourth – but what could everyone else do with their final efforts of the afternoon?

Leclerc answered that spectacularly by brilliantly stringing his three sectors together to clock a 1m 15.372s – denying both Piastri and Norris and leaving him speechless over the radio as he returned to the pit lane to celebrate Ferrari’s first pole of 2025.

Russell booked a spot on the second row in fourth (both the Briton and team mate Antonelli being cleared over their delta time investigation), followed by the rapid Aston Martins of Alonso and Stroll, Bortoleto’s Sauber, Verstappen’s Red Bull and the two Racing Bulls of Lawson and Hadjar.

Key quote

“Today I don’t understand anything at Formula 1!” Leclerc said afterwards. “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, it’s pole position. I definitely did not expect that.”

What’s next

The 2025 Hungarian Grand Prix is set to begin at 1500 local time on Sunday. Head to the RACE HUB to find out how you can catch the action from the Hungaroring.