Toward the end of qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix, if you’re like me, you probably uttered the words, “Where did that come from?” Charles Leclerc finally broke Ferrari’s drought in Budapest, securing the team’s first grand prix pole position of the season, following Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time in Sprint qualifying in China.
It’s certainly been a long time coming, but also didn’t feel like it was particularly on the cards heading into the session, even if Leclerc was often the nearest challenger to McLaren so far this weekend. The end of Q2 really created doubt, with the two McLaren drivers the only cars able to dip below the 1m15s barrier, and Leclerc over half a second adrift in sixth.
That session also saw Hamilton eliminated, so Leclerc beating everyone just 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. “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 of the day, it’s pole position. I definitely did not expect that.
“The conditions changed, which made everything very tricky, and at the end we are on pole position. Honestly, I have no words. Yeah, it’s probably one of the best pole positions I’ve ever had because it’s the most unexpected for sure.”
Leclerc was not alone in his disbelief, as championship leader Oscar Piastri similarly could not sum up how the session got away from McLaren so quickly.
“Depends where you’re sat,” Piastri admitted. “If you’re where Charles is, [it’s] fantastic. If you’re where I’m sat, bizarre and somewhat frustrating, but I think the conditions completely changed, and it was just weird.
“My first lap felt terrible because I was pushing too much, kind of with the wind direction from the first two sessions in mind. I felt like I did a better job on the second lap, managing expectations, and it was even worse.
“A bizarre session, but I need to look back and see what differences it made. Things definitely felt more tricky for myself as well in Q3, but I think for everybody it would have been difficult, so that’s not our excuse.”
Piastri was the only driver not to improve on their second runs in Q3 and ended up just 0.026s off Leclerc, while Lando Norris found a bit more time but was still unable to climb higher than third, 0.041s away from pole. It was remarkably close, but also a significant turnaround from Q2. “I’ll just copy and paste [Piastri’s comments],” Norris added. “Exactly the same. Q2 felt very good, felt confident to improve. Into Q3, aiming for a similar lap time, similar limits, and just felt pretty dreadful.