The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2026 Hungarian GP Qualifying Review

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

Hungary delivered a closely fought qualifying session as a surprise contender claimed pole. Ben is flying solo to break down all the action, from Ferrari and McLaren's pace and who holds the edge for Sunday's race, to another frustrating day for Max Verstappen... Get involved in F1 Fantasy this season! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the Late Braking league⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and see if you can beat us... LEAGUE CODE: C6Y6R4ZUY02 Want more Late Braking? Support the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get:Ad-free listeningFull-length bonus episodesPower Rankings after every raceHistorical race reviews& more exclusive extras!Don't forget! You can also gift a Late Braking Patreon subscription—perfect for loved ones or your own wish list. Choose anything from 1 month up to a full year of top-notch F1 content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/latebrakingf1/gift⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Late Braking:You can find us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Come hang out with us and thousands of fellow F1 fans in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ server and get involved in lively everyday & race weekend chats!Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F1 Fantasy League⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and see if you can beat us!Get in touch any time at [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. Hello and a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by me, Ben Hocking. That's right. It's happens once or twice a season, doesn't it, folks? Where I get to monologue for about 30 minutes in a qualifying review. So this is either a massive treat for those of you that love this kind of an episode once or twice a year, or for the vast majority of you, sorry.

And to my voice, I apologise as well for putting it through its paces over the next 30 minutes or so. But stick around because we are going to dissect everything that happened in today's Hungarian GP qualifying session. A very interesting one indeed.

I have to say, the Hungara Ring always delivers not only a very interesting qualifying session, but a very close qualifying session. It's very rare that a driver will walk away from qualifying here with a pole margin of over a tenth of a second. It is usually hundreds, if not thousands, that separates at least the top couple of drivers.

That's kind of what we've got here today, because for the first time in 2026, at least in normal Grand Prix conditions, we don't have a Mercedes on pole. Antonelli and Russell almost all the way to the summer break had been able to lock out poll positions so far this year but not quite to be. Lando Norris for McLaren taking the pole position

ahead of Lewis Hamilton for Ferrari, meaning not only is there a Mercedes not on pole position, not only is there a Mercedes not on the front row of the grid, but if you were watching the post-qualifying interviews that are done where they look towards, the top three, again, you will see no Mercedes presence there whatsoever. Kimmy Antonelli leading the Mercedes charge, but down in P4, very unusual for the season that has been unfolding to this point, but an excellent job from both Ferraris to beat both Mercedes

and an even more excellent job from Lando Norris to take the pole position. Make sense to start there. I'll admit, when we were previewing this Grand Prix on Wednesday, McLaren didn't get a lot of air time. And part of the reason is they haven't shown us too much that indicates that they were going to be in the fight for pole position here or maybe the fight for the race win tomorrow.

Which is why they didn't maybe have the spotlight on them as much as these other teams that have been featuring out front. For so long this year, we've seen them in a comfortable fourth place in terms of constructors or a comfortable third place. But it has been, rare that they have been fighting at the end of Q3 for pole position. And even going into qualifying whilst practice sessions did look pretty good for Lando Norris and for McLaren. It's not

the first time we've seen that this year where they've looked a little bit better maybe on a Friday or a Saturday morning, but then the pace hasn't necessarily faded away by the time we've got to qualifying, but everyone else has managed to up their pace just a little bit more when the times really start to come down. Today, Lando Norris was able to keep improving at the same rate of everyone else. So he was able to take what was a leading time in FP3 all the way through to that leading time in Q3. And respect to him, because I believe he was fastest in all three qualifying sessions here. So this isn't an instance where they've left it late and delivered a great lap at the end.

And whilst Lando Norris did need to overcome Lewis Hamilton in that final part of qualifying, it isn't out of form either. Q1 and Q2, Lando Norris was right there as well. I think maybe the biggest learning from this, of course, it's an interesting one, where the track itself is much more dependent on chassis rather than power unit. But we have seen so far this year, Mercedes, of course, powering McLaren, Mercedes themselves doing very well pretty much everywhere, McLaren with the same power unit not able to follow through. And yet when we come to a circuit where that power unit, which we know including the battery, is very good,

McLaren actually improve rather than fall back, which you could argue is what Mercedes have done here. But I guess if you look at Belgium and the way that went, it isn't overly surprising. Lando Norris was absolutely brilliant in the middle sector at Spa, which of course is the part of the track that contains the most corners. The first and final sector is far more dependent on straight line speed. The middle sector is lower speed and where cornering can really help you out. In the first and final parts of that lap, it was far too much of a margin for Lando Norris to make up,

even though he was showing how good he was in that middle sector, the amount of time he was losing in the first and final, he wasn't going to be able to make up for that. Here is different because it actually worked exactly the same way and that the middle sector was Lando Norris's sector. That's the one where, that's really where the pole position has come from, is the middle sector. But unlike Spar, even though he is losing a little bit

in that first and final sector to Lewis Hamilton, it's not enough to lose that poll. Credit to Lando Norris, he's been really good the last few races, particularly if you look at, if you look at SPAR, I know he had the 10 place grid penalty there. I still think his pace was pretty impressive. And all weekend here, he has been absolutely on it. And he's put nearly half a second on Oscar Piastri in Q3. And again, that is fairly similar to what that margin was in Q2 and in Q1 as well.

He's proven himself to be the better of the two this weekend so far. And he's rewarded with an excellent poll position. attention will turn to can he hold on to that tomorrow? We haven't really got a lot to go on in terms of McLaren trying to hold off these teams in nearly every Grand Prix to this point in the season. It's been a case of can McLaren catch up to a team ahead of them. But it is going to be very interesting on what is set to be a very hot race day in Hungary. Lewis Hamilton in second place.

Now, he is over two temps clear. of everyone who isn't named Lando Norris. We know Hamilton's pedigree around this track. Not only has he won this event eight times, he's got pole position here nine times. Very impressive on both qualifying and race day at this track. And we saw a lot of that same form carry through to today to the point where he was so close to obtaining that pole position.

And indeed, on that first run, it looked like he was going to have it. I was really impressed with the way that Lewis Hamilton was able to get the most out of the car in the first and final sectors. And again, that's where that's where his advantage over Charles LeCler is. LeCleur was actually faster in the middle part of the lap. But Hamilton was able to really extend that advantage in both the first and the final sectors. And that's largely what we saw in practice as well. So even early on in practice, early on in qualifying, where it didn't seem as if Ferrari had the same pace as what they had earlier in the day, I was still expecting Hamilton to be in this fight for pole position because I'd seen what he could do earlier.

And as soon as he was able to hook up a final sector, which he couldn't really do early on, and as soon as he was able to put together a serviceable middle sector, that's where we really saw the best of him. And again, it looked like that was going to be enough. frustrating for him and for the team on that second run, he couldn't improve and not particularly close

to improving either. That was a long way off what that first run was. Lewis Hamilton disagreeing with the ruling that the ruling of his team to go out first. Of course, LeCler came out

second. So the Ferrari's clearly going with a strategy to go out earlier than everyone else. Hamilton saying in his post qualifying interview, he didn't agree with that. I'm with the team on this.

reason being we saw what happened with Max Verstappen. I know it didn't interrupt a lap, but we saw what happened with George Russell as well. When you get to the point you under Q3, the later you leave it and the further back you are in the queue, there is a risk and reward element of the better your track conditions will be, but the higher risk that you will encounter a yellow or a red flag. And that's exactly what happened to Antonelli,

even though he did still improve his lap time. I think it was safer for Ferrari who had already managed to get the fastest time in those first runs to go out first and try and improve it. I think the track evolution was there for it to be improved ever so slightly. It would have been tough, again, just based on how good that lap was

for Hamilton in the first instance. But yeah, I don't disagree with what the team did there. I think they played it safe and rightly so. And they, well, I was going to say they're still in a good spot. The issue, at least as I'm recording this, is that Lewis Hamilton is under investigation for potentially impeding Oscar Piastri,

which could set him back a few grid positions. Having looked at the incident and it's down into turn one, it looks like a fairly slam dunk one to me. So Lewis Hamilton has completed his lap. Oscar Piastri is about to go on his last flying lap. And for whatever reason, whether you blame driver or team, I blame team here. The message hasn't been communicated

that Oscar Piastri is starting a flying lap right behind him because Hamilton is on the racing line on an in-lap going into turn one. Now, if that's properly communicated to him, he is far off that line and letting Oscar Piastri go by. You could argue that Hamilton should be more aware himself and I would listen to that argument as well,

but for me, this is on the team. The team has to be the one communicating this and whether it was a lapse in attention from someone who couldn't communicate this message, I don't know, but I would be massively surprised if this doesn't lead to a three-place grid penalty for Lewis Hamilton. Just to wrap up talks of McLaren and Ferrari, on Ferrari's side, first and foremost, Charles LeClaire and third, again, might become second if Hamilton is penalised. Just couldn't find it in the first sector, which is quite bizarre. So middle and final sectors, Hamilton and LeCleur were pretty well matched, not really anything between them.

In the first sector, that's where Hamilton was nearly two-temps faster, which is very interesting because the first part of the lap is essentially three corners and straight lines. So whether it's set up related, whether it's something to do with those very specific corners, I'm not sure. But disappointment, and you could tell when LeClau was being interviewed afterwards, there was disappointment that he wasn't. on the pace of his teammate. Whether that changes in race trim or not, I don't know. But the guy, of course, got pole position here last year, not quite on it versus his teammate. But equally far from the most egregious gap to a teammate that we'll talk about today.

Final point on Ferrari, actually, I should mention. I'm surprised that this hasn't going into tomorrow, at least looking at the weather reports I can see. I'm surprised this race hasn't been called a heat hazard in the same way that the Austrian GP was a few rounds ago, that could well change. Point being, it looks like it's going to be very hot. Last time it was that hot, again, Austria, Ferrari did not perform very well. Now, whether that was because their upgrades hadn't been sort of embedded well enough yet,

or whether that's because of track characteristics, or whether it was because of the weather, I don't really know. But if the weather did play a part in that and they were unable to cope with the high temperatures in the same way that their rivals could, that's a bit of a concern going into tomorrow. But we'll see how the weather changes. Should mention Piastri again whilst we're on Ferrari and then McLaren.

Piastri, quite simply put, not on the pace of his teammate. And we heard some comments from Andrea Stella midweek about how similar to the discussions at Mercedes between Antonelli and Russell, seemingly something software related, not quite correlating and causing Piastri to lose out, whilst Mercedes think they have solved it on their end, there's no indication as to whether that will have extended to McLaren as of yet. Piastri just kind of losing everywhere. It's one of those where you can't really point to a particular sector or point to a particular corner and say, if he improves there, than these two a level.

Oddly enough, just not on it versus his teammate. And we've seen him win here before, of course, Piastri. We've seen him competitive here before. Certainly he would have felt he could have won. Last year of strategy went differently, of course. So to see him struggle as much as he did here, quite interesting. It will actually result in something good enough

in that he's managed to out-qualify the Red Bulls, he's managed to out-qualify Russell. and again could take advantage of Hamilton falling back. So he'll be in a good spot, but the pace does concern me just a little bit. Mercedes, let's chat them. Let's chat Kimmy Antonelli first and foremost, because he was the Mercedes that was kind of in this fight

versus his teammate, in the end about three temps separating Antonelli and Russell. Some question as to whether a yellow flag on his flying lap, the second flying lap, might have cost him at all. My instinct is maybe not. I think there was a chance without that he gets ahead of Shaula Clare,

but based on the pace we've seen from Mercedes so far this weekend, I didn't think he was in that fight for pole position. Again, whereas McLaren seemed very good in the middle sector. Ferrari seemed very good in the first and the final sector.

Mercedes just didn't really specialize in any of them. They almost did what McClarin's, Claren did, but just slightly worse. In that I think Antonelli was faster than Hamilton in the middle sector, but not to the same extent that Norris was. And equally, first and final sectors, he was still losing out to both of those drivers. So maybe he puts together a slightly better final sector without those yellows.

It still was a personal best, in which case maybe he gets third here. I don't think he was in the fight for poll. Antonelli, I think proving as well as some other teams and drivers, too, that if you miss a session, whether that's due to a rookie taking your place in FP1 or some other issue, meaning you lose time, it is difficult to get it back here. This is a rhythm-based circuit and you need to get into the flow of the track and it does take you a little bit longer if you miss time. Antonelli missed P1, FP1, whereas Russell didn't.

And we saw throughout the other couple of practice sessions, Antonelli wasn't quite the there. There were just a few, he didn't seem particularly happy, a few instances of not quite hooking up the lap together. But as soon as we got to qualifying, it did start to come together. And I think he's had a pretty good job here, even though it is lower than what we've expected from him so far this year. Again, I'm not convinced the Mercedes. This isn't their track versus most of the others that we've been to. Russell, yeah, this will concern him. So there's been a lot of discourse over the last couple of weeks about this apparent car slash software issue that seems to be costing George Russell in a way that it's not costing Kimmy Antonelli. We've heard comments from

Russell himself. We've heard comments from Toto Wolf, who was a bit more reserved in his judgment about how much it was costing George Russell, maybe sometime, but not all of the time that he's losing out to his teammate. The fact that Mercedes thinks, going into this weekend that they have solved that issue, and it's not resulted in George Russell being on the pace of his teammate, should be pretty worrying for him. And again, this is just under three tenths separating them in the final part of qualifying. It didn't look much better than that earlier on either.

I believe Antonelli had the advantage over his teammate in all three parts of qualifying. Yeah. If you can't point to that being an issue anymore, there's something else you need to look at, and I worry for George Russell that he needs to look at himself. Again, I'm not saying that this wasn't costing him at all. And the gap here, it's less than what it was at SPAR, equally as a shorter track,

so I don't know how much that's going to play into it. But a bit, just overall a bit concerning. And he's got to hope that, firstly, the issue that saw him, him pulled to the side of the track at the end of qualifying is fixed ahead of tomorrow. And then also that his race pace can be a better representation versus his teammate. I'm going to take a quick break. But on the other side, we still got plenty to get to, still got the Red Bulls to discuss,

Arvid Lindblad and Nico Holkenberg making Q3. And then we'll get into Q2 and Q1, which of course will include Fernando Alonzo and Aston Martin making it out of the first part of qualifying. Welcome back, everyone, to the second part of today's Hungarian GP qualifying review. Let's chat Red Bull. A disappointment, really, in sixth and in eighth, because earlier on in the weekend, it seemed to promise a bit more than that. I think they were second and fourth after the first practice.

And then as we got into the business end of qualifying, into the real qualifying sims in FP3. It just became apparent that they were a little bit off their rivals. And indeed, this will have to go down as four for four in terms of the big teams that exist in F1 right now. This happened just over half a second away from Lando Norris and Hadjar about six and a half temps. I think if you'd said a month ago,

the first time that Mercedes won't be on poll this season will be the Hungarian GP. Who's taken that poll instead? I think my first answer probably would have been one of the Ferrari drivers. My second answer would have been Max Verstappen. And it's got to be quite disappointing for Red Bull that it's not them that's challenging

where Mercedes have let themselves down a bit. In fact, they are still at least, At least, Hadjar is slower than both of them. Vastappen's slower than one of them. It's pretty disappointing. Where you've got McLaren and Ferrari competing for a pole position, you've got Max Vastappan spinning in Q3 and Isaac Hattar spinning in Q2.

Neither of them looked very comfortable throughout. And neither quite looked like they had the pace to challenge the front. The only time that it looked a little bit better was when Isaac Hadjar at the end of Q2 put together a much better lap time. That was a 17-8, which I think was about three-tenths away from Lando Norris's time that led that session. And maybe at that point, it was felt, okay, maybe they can do something here. But as it turned out, that was kind of the extent of their pace.

Isaac Hadjar didn't really improve from Q2 to Q3. Max Verstappen did, but he didn't set as good of a lap time in Q2. whereas all of these other teams, Norris improved by two and a half tenths. Hamilton improved by six tenths of a second. Charle-le-clair improved by a couple of temps. Red Bull weren't able to go with them. And to me, at least, it felt like, and I'm going to accuse both drivers of this, it kind of felt like they were overdriving it.

One of the keys to qualifying around the Hungara ring is you need to be patient because the tyres are tricky to judge here. Not only did they take a little bit of a while to get warmed up, we saw a few instances of multiple warm-up laps. But outside of that, they can be quite difficult to hold on to by the end of the lap. Certainly the final sector and the way that the track has been relayed might have something to do with this as well. but the way that the drivers were really struggling through the final part of this lap

often it made sense to leave a bit of tire available for the end of the lap that's not how you go qualifying at a lot of other circuits but here it tends to work quite well as a strategy but in red bull's instance they have two spins both towards the end of the lap just to talk about isa kajas first of all so that was right the end of the second sector, he could have got out of it and he chose not to. And I appreciate when you're when you're qualifying in F1, you need to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way and you don't want to be giving up laps unnecessarily. But Hajar was far too wide going into that right-hander and he got wider and wider. And there was, I feel like there was an opportunity

for Hagear to say, you know what, I'm not making this or I'm going to or I run the risk of of spinning here and I'll cut my losses. Maybe I'll still be able to deliver a good enough lap time here, but if not, I'll go again. And he kept it, he kept it in there and obviously spun as a result of that. Similar sort of thing for Max Westappen. So this might have been an act of desperation in that he didn't improve in the first or the second sector on his last run,

maybe trying something very bold into that final corner, ultimately doesn't pay off as he spins. I need to repeat something that I have mentioned many times before when it comes to qualifying. And just to be clear, I've said this very consistently about every team and every driver. So I'm sure no one would ever accuse me or us of bias. No one would ever do that. But just in case, I always say this about teams and drivers, if you are the sole cause of a yellow or a red flag and it is costing other drivers lap times,

you should be penalized for that. You should lose your best lap in that session. I don't understand how every other form of motorsport seems to have got this right. And F1 continues to get it so, so wrong. There should be some penalty, particularly when it is a driver error that has cost you.

And whether it did cost anyone else lap time or not, it is tough to say. But I don't understand why it would be, for impeding, for example. If you're impeding someone, as you could argue Lewis Hamilton did, and again, he might have already got a penalty while you're listening to this. Maybe he didn't. There is an investigation as to whether you have slowed someone down

and you have cost them a lap. It's the same logic for a yellow or a red flag. You have cost someone potentially a lap. You should be penalised for that. He won't be. But yeah, I just think the Red Bulls, trying to keep up with everyone else, maybe not quite even the car to do so.

then causing one or two errors out there. I need to absolutely heat praise on Mr. Arvid Limbludd, as we have done quite consistently over the last couple of months, because he keeps delivering performances that are worthy of this praise, again finding his way into the top 10 in qualifying. But that doesn't really tell the whole story this weekend. There have been other weekends so far this year where he's done the same job. He started ninth quite consistently over the last.

couple of months. But this is different in that Limblud going into today's qualifying session had much less running as a result of FP3 having to be sat out with an issue to the point where he, I think he got two very late laps in in FP3, but didn't do about 50 minutes of the session maybe. He was most certainly on the back foot going into qualifying. You wouldn't have been able to tell based on the lap times. Not only does he make it through very comfortably in Q1, less than a tenth away from his teammate, he then goes nearly a second faster by the time we get to Q2. And in the middle sector in particular, I think I worked it out at the time. There were only three drivers who were faster than him in that middle sector in Q2. So great job not only

to get there, but then when he did get there, he's able to beat Nika Holkenberg by just over four tenths of a second. Unfortunately for him, this wasn't a day where racing balls were going to be able to challenge the top eight. There was quite some gap

between himself and Isaac Hadjar and P8. But even so, I mean, that's not really an expectation of him or the team at this point. Yeah, and the fact

that not only did he deliver a great lap in Q2, he did go about a temp faster again when we got to Q3, so very impressed by what he was able to do regardless of other circumstances, but in particular because of the loss of track time that he had.

Liam Lawson, on the other hand, might well be disappointed. This is, I believe he has now got exactly the same car as Arvid Lindblad. If you aren't aware at Spa, there was an upgrade that went Limblud's way, but not Lawson's way. And that, at least in part, explained some of the pace difference between them. Disappointing that Lawson couldn't get through to Q3 with his teammate. it's only going to be two positions on the grid difference between them P9 and P11, but there was quite some gap in terms of time in Q2. So yeah, a bit disappointing from Lawson,

who otherwise has delivered a very good season to this point. And to be clear, like P11 is far from a disaster. But he'll be frustrated to be second of the two racing balls here. Speaking of disappointing, Audi, I thought that there would be a little bit more here. we've seen over again maybe the last four or five races a bit of a repeated pattern of racing ball seemingly having the fifth best car Audi having the sixth best car and

Audi maybe being a little bit stronger in race pace but racing balls having the advantage in qualifying but we have been at circuits where the Audi power unit has been a bit suspect we know it's not delivering on the same level, particularly as the Red Bull power units. And as soon as we got to attract like Hungary, there was a lot of optimism, I think, within Audi, but also within F1 more generally, that now we're at a track that suits Audi a bit more. I'm not expecting them to compete necessarily with the top four teams on outright pace,

but certainly enough to get clear of racing balls. They couldn't. You know, Holkenberg, Holkenberg delivered a very good lap in Q1. and then that was kind of it. They didn't have anything else left to give, whereas Racing Bulls most definitely did. Holkhamberg's lap in Q1 was almost identical to his lap in Q3. I think there will be a bit of disappointment that,

again, a track in theory that should suit the team, the results look remarkably similar to what we've had to this point. But at least on Holkenberg's side of the garage, he's made it through to Q3 and he's got P10. Portoletto was called. caught out by the spin from Isaac Cadjar in the first instance in Q2, but then still not able to deliver a lap time good enough to beat the two Alpins and beat Liam Lawson. I think he'll be pretty gutted. Yeah, I think there'll be some disappointment there.

As we head out of Q3, not too much to report in terms of the Alpines 12th and 13th, as you would probably expect. Gasly quicker than Colapinto, but not by a huge amount, about two-tenths. Ocon, I have to shout out O'Con. He's not only out-qualified Olly Behrman, but he's also made it through to Q2. And it was legitimate as well. O'Con did look like the faster driver throughout the practice sessions. A bit of an asterisk just based on Behrman was, again, one of those drivers that didn't do FP1, but still a good necessary result for O'Con. But I think outside of the fight for pole, the thing that people were looking forward to most, going into this qualifying session was what would that Aston Martin look like? How much has it improved based on those upgrades versus what we've seen from them in recent Grand Prix? 16 upgrades from Aston Martin heading into the weekend, which I think, could be wrong on this, I think is more upgrades at this one weekend than they have had all of the other weekends combined.

And if Adrian Nui is to be believed, and there's no reason why he wouldn't be, this isn't the end of it either. We know that there's an engine upgrade coming in Zambor, but apparently there's more, you know, chassis or aero-related upgrades still to come over the next few rounds, too. Potentially, this isn't everything we've seen from Aston Martin yet. Alonzo able to make it through to Q2, ultimately 16th was the ceiling for the car, Lanchdroll out in 20th. Firstly, and there's no escaping this, there is, like, could you imagine a year ago saying that this would be a success? Like, Alonzo scraping through to Q2 and qualifying for the Hungarian GP 16th, and that would be considered a massive step forward.

You'd have been called insane, and rightly so, but this is the situation that they and we find ourselves in. Credit to Alonzo for putting it all together and delivering a lap in the 119s. I think this is about where I thought these upgrades we're going to get them to. I think even midweek we asked the question whether, you know, would it be one Aston into Q2? Is that what we're probably looking at? That's exactly what we've got here.

I didn't expect them to be competing, as some in the paddock suggested. I didn't expect them to be competing straight away with Audi or racing balls or even Alpine. You know, Alonzo is still a second adrift of Pierre Gasly, for example, in that qualifying session. But I did expect them at least to be on more even terms with Williams, who they've actually surpassed here, and also, and also Hasse. Hasse have actually taken a step forward themselves this

weekend, it seems. But yeah, I think this is about what I was expecting from them. I think if you're looking at this from a more encouraging point of view, the bulk of the time that Aston Martin were losing, that of course they were losing everywhere because that car, even though it's been significantly upgraded is still not a front runner, where they're losing the bulk of the time is the first sector. And the first sector here is the one that is most dependent on power unit and straight line speed. We saw throughout practice they were still quite considerably down in terms of top speed to their rivals. And that's not a surprise. Again, the engine upgrade that they're receiving won't be here until after the summer break at Zandvort. So the fact that that is where the

majority of the time is being lost right now is almost encouraging in that if that bit can be solved when we get to the Dutch GP put together with the improvements that happened here in the middle and the final sector and you might have a car that is able to compete with, let's say, Alpine. I'm still not sure overnight they're going to get to the fourth or fifth fastest team in this sport, but it's still looking considerably better than what it was. Credit to Alonzo. Lance Strull, he'll be annoyed because, um, you know, He couldn't put a lap together. Like, he's qualified 20th here,

and he's behind, therefore, both of the Williams. His overall theoretical best lap time, if you were to put together his best sectors across all three of his runs, I think was only a tenth shy of what Alonzo was able to do.

So the pace was actually there for Landstrol, and credit to him, because he missed all of FP2 due to a broken suspension. But whereas Alonzo was able to hook together all of his best sectors into one lap, a very critical skill needed in qualifying. Lance Stroll, not able to do the same thing.

So I think it'll be disappointed with 20 if there were at least a few more positions for him to have. And that really only leaves me to just quickly mention Williams, who I've said this a couple of times. Astor Martin's downfall this year has been quite helpful for Williams and it has taken a bit of attention off of them and what has gone wrong for them this year. You know, we've had Cadillac and Aston Martin

comfortably fighting at the back, and Williams have kind of been here competing for the ninth best team, eight four ninth best team. They were fifth last year, trying to sort of go into the shadows and hope that no one was paying attention to the disappointment that this season has been for them so far.

Now that Aston Martin have improved and they might well continue to improve, there's less room to hide. That car was a boat. That car was an absolute boat for both Alban and signs. The fact that they've finished within half a tenth of each other should indicate that the pace was never there for this team this weekend. Really tough for them because we've just come out of a few Grand Prix

where it's kind of been suggested this isn't really our track. We're not quite there at this particular track. We've come to a completely different type of track here. And Hass, who have been very level with Williams over the last few Grand Prix, have taken a step forward, and Williams haven't. I know Bayerman and Sines were next to each other, 17th and 18th. There was four temps between them. They weren't even on the level of HASS this weekend.

So we heard James Vowels over Team Radio kind of apologized to both Albin and signs to say, look, that was a good lap. Sorry that the balance just isn't there. And it really isn't there at the moment. They've got a lot to work on. We know they've got an upgrade coming. Maybe not the same level as Aston Martin, but they need it to be a quite considerable one.

With that, I will just quickly hand out a driver of the session. As usual, the pole sitter very much in contention for this Lando Norris, as is the driver that was narrowly beaten to that pole, Lewis Hamilton. Both of them were absolutely brilliant on their flying laps. But I am going to go for Arvid Lindblad, for the reasons that I gave earlier on, the fact that he's able to put four tenths of a second on Nika Holcomberg to get ninth place on the grid,

despite losing time earlier on in the weekend. Very, very good. And it's easy to forget. This guy's a rookie. I know he's been to this track before in junior formally, but he hasn't done this in an F1 car before. And yet here we are talking about him in yet another ninth place finish. Congratulations to him.

See if he can convert that tomorrow, where I am delighted to be able to say, it won't be me by myself. So if you're tired of my voice at this point, and honestly, I am with you. You can hear the dulcet tones of Mr. Harry Yead and Mr. Sam Sage tomorrow. You'll also be able to hear us on Power Rankings on Monday. That's for our Patreon subscribers. If you're interested in becoming a Patreon subscriber, the link is in the description.

We've got three different tiers. It's our top tier that hosts Power Rankings. We give you a voice as well. So we'll put out a form just after the Grand Prix is finished. asking you every single driver, where do you rate them from 1 to 10? We'll put all of your rankings together to create a Patreon average. It's very interesting to see how your scores compare to our scores. We get into all of that and a lot, lot more on Patreon.

Plenty of content there. But until tomorrow, I'm going to leave you there. I've been Ben Hocking. Keep breaking late.