Towards the end of the qualification for the Hungarian Grand Prix, if you are like me, you probably expressed the words: “Where did that come from?” Charles Leclerc finally broke the drought of Ferrari in Budapest and took care of the first Grand Prix pole position of the team of the seasonAfter the fastest time of Lewis Hamilton in Sprint qualification in China.
It was certainly a long time ago, but also did not feel that it was mainly on the cards on the way to the session, even if Leclerc was often the closest challenger of McLaren so far this weekend. The end of Q2 really created doubt, with the two McLaren drivers the only cars that can dive under the barrier of 1M15S, and Leclerc more than half a second drift in the sixth.
Hamilton also saw that session eliminating, so Leclerc who struck everyone only 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. “To be honest, the entire qualification is extremely difficult. If I say that extremely difficult, it is not overdoed. It was super difficult. It was difficult for us to come to Q2, it was difficult for us to come to Q3.
“In Q3 the circumstances changed a bit; everything became a lot more difficult, and I knew that I just had to make a clean round to target third. At the end of the day the pole position was. I certainly did not expect that.
“The circumstances have changed, which made everything very difficult, and at the end we are in pole position. To be honest I have no words. Yes, it is probably one of the best polar positions I have ever had because it is certainly the most unexpected.”
Leclerc was not only in his disbelief, because championship leader Oscar Piastri could not summarize in the same way how the session got away from McLaren so quickly.
“Depends on where you were,” Piastri admitted. “If you’re where Charles is, [it’s] fantastic. If you are where I was, bizarre and somewhat frustrating, but I think the circumstances have changed completely and it was just weird.
“My first round felt terrible because I pushed too much, a bit with the wind direction of the first two sessions in mind. I felt that I worked better in the second round, achieved expectations, and it was even worse.
“A bizarre session, but I have to look back and see what differences it have made. Things certainly felt more difficult for myself in Q3, but I think it would have been difficult for everyone, so that is not our excuse.”
Piastri was the only driver who did not improve their second runs in Q3 and finished only 0.026s from Leclerc, while Lando Norris found a little more time, but was still unable to climb higher than third, 0.041s removed from the post. It was remarkably close, but also an important change of the second quarter. ‘I will just copy and paste [Piastri’s comments]”Norris added.” Exactly the same. Q2 felt very good, felt confident to improve. In Q3, aimed at a similar round, similar limits, and just felt pretty terrible.
“The same things. I was not surprised that I was a 15.4s in the first run, but in the second round it is just difficult to know how much more to push or not push. I thought:” Oh, it’s a much better round “, and I was 15.4s again – similar.
“The wind has such large effects on the car when you drive. It is pretty easy that it is half a second swing. Frustrating because we seem to have a good gap, but in Q3 it seemed more like a team than for others.”
While everyone expected that McLaren would be on top of the pile as usual, Andrea Stella says that the rapid change in circumstances has taken away everyone. Joe Portlock/Getty Images
A big question remains – why? The answer seems to be two -fold. One – the gorge to Leclerc was not as great as it appeared in Q2, where the Ferrari driver made a mistake in his best round at bend 4 and lose time so that he might seem more a threat, or at least closer, on the way to the shooting position for pole position. The other relates to the dynamics in which the two McLaren directors are confronted while fighting each other for a world championship.
‘I think it’s interesting [conundrum] In terms of understanding how things go for a Formula 1 car, “McLaren Team director Andrea Stella explained.” Because we certainly had an important change in circumstances.
“You can see a steep change in terms of wind direction, wind intensity, temperature, humidity – everything changed in the immediate data. Everyone from Q2 – until then we were quite competitive; we certainly put strong rounds compiled – from Q2 to Q3, everyone went slower.
“We went on average about half a second slower. In fact, we simulated the change in circumstances in our simulations, and it gives a little less than that, but about four tenths of a second. But Ferrari and Leclerc managed to actually go faster.
“The course was absolutely slower. I think that for Lando and Oscar, after they had seen in the first run, the circumstances had changed – that the grip was not what they had expected, that every corner would be a bit unpredictable, that’s why the round time did not come – I think they should be in the second set to be a bit careful, because you want to be sure for the championship racing, you want to be sure.
“I think this is a slightly different approach for Charles. I think he just went for it, such as:” I don’t think I have a lot to lose here, “and it has paid off. This is a credit and merit for a very good performance by Ferrari and Charles.”
Stella’s theory would also explain how close other cars could come, with the entire top six – also consisting of George Russell, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll – covered by 0.126s at the end of the qualification. Perhaps it was a one-off, the unique by-product of such an unexpected change of track and weather conditions, and McLaren will again be clear on Sunday in Race-Trim, but Norris is on their care that one car has been the most competitive opposition for both of them in four of the last six races.
“I think we always have a little more advantage, at least in the race,” Norris acknowledged. “Our most important competitor in the past four or five races has been Charles and it has been the Ferrari. If there was someone else who would be on pole today, it would be Charles, and if there is someone who will make our lives difficult tomorrow, it will be the same man.”
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