Hungary GP Qualifying Report

With heavy rain for FP3, Latifi took his Williams around the track fastest.  Could the team translate this into a superb qualifying result in the dry?  Though thick, dark clouds loomed.  Everything this week has been overshadowed with Vettel's news that he has created an Instagram account.  And used it to announce his retirement at the end of the season.  LeClerc wishes that were true.  Vettel's retirement post didn't divert the media's attention from his crashing out in the dry, from the lead, last weekend.

With the track evolving as the session went on, every car was out at the end of the first Qualifying session.  Fernando "wily old fox" Alonso backed everybody up to try and make the most of it.  Despite lots of potential, there were no surprises for the drivers leaving the Qualifying: Tsunoda, Albon, pensioner Vettel, Gasly and Latifi.  Williams and Alpha Tauri just haven't brought it again this season.  Latifi swearing all the way back to the pits for a mistake at the end of the lap which cost him dearly.  Gasly had a lap deleted.

With 4 minutes to go in the second Qualifying session, Perez felt drops of rain.  There was no one interesting in the bottom 5 any way, so it really didn't matter.  It can only have been a couple of drops though as Ocon and Bottas then put in a quick lap each and knocked out Perez.  The Mexican had already been having a rocky session with a lap time deleted for exceeding track limits and then having it re-instated.  He felt he was blocked by Magnussen on his fast lap.

On to the final session and Red Bull's bad luck continued with Verstappen losing power in the final run. The reliability issues that bounce between Ferrari and Red Bull has landed in Austria.  Sainz looked good for pole.  His team mate couldn't beat him.  Then, out of nowhere, Russell took it, with his team mate Hamilton ending the session with a DRS problem in the pits.  Norris scored 4th, 5 places ahead of his team mate Ricciardo.

Russell was first to acknowledge that beating the Ferraris in the race was unlikely and Hamilton was pretty dejected that it wasn't him taking the pole when it was a possibility for the team (and by team, he usually means him).