More sneakiness from Hamilton and Mercedes! What happened in qualifying and how did it go?

Saturday’s qualifying for Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix brought more controversy and, above all, borderline and sneaky behaviour from Mercedes. After this, the already solid media war is sure to continue. On top of that, we saw another accident and red flagsin qualifying .

On Sunday, we have the eleventh race on the Formula One World Championship calendar. We’re now through Saturday’s qualifying, but Mick Schumacher didn’t make it. Fifteen minutes before the end of the third practice session, he crashed and severely damaged his car, including the gearbox.

The first part of qualifying was really uneventful. Surprisingly, Nikita Mazepin, who will start nineteenth, did not advance to the second part. Both Williams cars (18th Latifi, 17th Russell) also failed to qualify for Q2. Sixteenth will be Júki Cunoda in the Alpha Tauri for Sunday’s race.

In the second part of the race we witnessed an accident involving Carlos Sainz. The 26-year-old Spaniard paid the price for oversteering the Ferrari and ended his qualifying session at Turn 14.

Red flags were displayed on the circuit and qualifying was suspended for around ten minutes. Sainz was unable to intervene further. Apart from him, the two Alfa Romeo drivers (14th Giovinazzi, 13th Räikkönen), Lance Stroll and Daniel Ricciardo, who was robbed of progressing to Q3 by Sebastian Vettel by a difference of just 77 thousandths of a second!

It was the third part of qualifying that brought great bitterness and all the more controversy. Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez were going to the last fast lap. It should be noted that it was Hamilton who had already “plugged it up”, so to speak, on his way out of the pit lane.

The out lap then saw some very borderline behaviour, especially from Hamilton. During this exit lap, the Mercedes drivers significantly delayed both Red Bull drivers behind them.

Fortunately, Verstappen was able to get in that fast lap before the time limit expired and had a chance to fight for pole position. The same could not be said for the other Red Bull driver, who was a few seconds short thanks to this pit stop. In other words, he didn’t make it across the line before the time limit below expired.

The final part of qualifying has a 12-minute limit during which drivers can set fast times. Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen and Pérez went out for their last sharp attempt with about 2 and a half minutes left in qualifying.

It should be noted, however, that Mercedes can’t entirely be blamed for this. Red Bull could have pitted earlier and none of this would have happened, for one thing. The second irrefutable fact is that Bottas then finished off Ocon in the out lap, and so there wasn’t really much else for the Mercedes drivers to do.

Because every driver wants to have clean air for their qualifying attempt. Moreover, no rule was broken. There is a time limit that clarifies how long a driver can spend on the track within one lap. And these limits are always set before qualifying.

But this rule only applies to the finishing laps, not the out lap. In addition, there were other drivers ahead of Ocon, namely Fernando Alonso and Lando Norris.

In the ensuing interview, he described qualifying as amazing, after which he received a significant cheer from the fans in the stands. “It was an amazing qualifying, I’m happy for pole position. I don’t mind the boos, it motivates me.”

Hamilton was also surprised that the other drivers in the top ten will go into tomorrow’s race on the softest specification tyres, marked in red. The Mercedes drivers are the only ones who will be wearing medium tyres at the start.

So what does the top ten on the grid look like? 1. Hamilton, 2nd Bottas, 3rd Verstappen, 4th Pérez, 5th Gasly, 6th Norris, 7th Leclerc, 8th Ocon, 9th Alonso, 10th Vettel.

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