For so long this season Ferrari have looked to take their place at the front of the grid, but when they finally did so at the Hungarian Grand Prix, it was with an extraordinary contrast in fortunes. Lewis Hamilton was left berating his performance as “useless” and doubting his own ability as he was knocked out in Q2 before his teammate, Charles Leclerc, celebrated taking the Scuderia’s first pole of the campaign.
While Ferrari will be buoyed up by Leclerc’s remarkable run in a tight contest at the Hungaroring – where he beat the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris into second and third and with the top four cars separated by four-hundredths of a second – it was a disconsolate Hamilton that captured the attention.
The seven-time champion is the most successful driver here with a record nine poles and eight wins. He has weaved his way around the tight, complex circuit in Budapest with such success it might almost be considered second nature.
Yet on Saturday it fell apart for the 40-year-old. His lap in Q2 was not good enough to take him through, Hamilton reduced to questioning himself. “I’m useless, absolutely useless,” was his blunt assessment. “It’s not their [Ferrari’s] problem, the other car is on pole. They probably need to change driver.”
The performance compounds what has been a torrid season for Hamilton. After 12 seasons with Mercedes, he is not finding the Ferrari to his taste. He has been working relentlessly with the team to come up to pace but is clearly deeply unhappy with his own failure to produce. He will start 12th.
In Belgium, he chastised himself for what he called an unacceptable error that left him in 16th on the grid and this is the fourth time he has failed to make it into Q3 this year.
He will be even more vexed because after a difficult first half of the season, Ferrari’s recent upgrade to the rear suspension, aimed at addressing the car’s weakness through slow corners, have been effective at least in bringing them closer to the dominant McLarens. However, fortune favoured Leclerc as he took his first pole in Hungary and the 27th of his career.
For the final runs in Q3, with rain beginning to fall, the track temperature dropping and a sudden change of wind direction, a tense final showdown ensued. It brought the Ferrari alive and Leclerc had its measure to perfection to take the top spot. Norris and Piastri could not improve on their times, caught out by the shift in the wind. The Monegasque driver edged out Piastri by two-hundredths of a second.
He had been hopeful of a top-five spot and was taken aback when he emerged on top. “Today is a day where I don’t understand anything any more about the sport,” he said. “Qualifying felt horrible. Everything felt out of place. It really felt like we had done a step backwards from FP3. And in terms of competitiveness, Q1, I was on the limit and I barely made it to Q2.
“Then Q3 the conditions changed for everybody. I just did a clean lap, which was a really good lap because those conditions were very difficult to get everything right.”
The task on Sunday facing Leclerc and Ferrari remains enormous, with the McLarens expected to once more have an advantage, but Leclerc is at least in position to try to dictate from the off in what promises to be a fascinating battle.
George Russell was in fourth for Mercedes and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll fifth and sixth for Aston Martin. Gabriel Bortoleto was seventh for Sauber, Max Verstappen eighth for Red Bull and Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar ninth and 10th for Racing Bulls.
