BUDAPEST: Lando Norris grabbed pole position ahead of his team-mate Oscar Piastri for the Hungarian Grand Prx on Saturday as McLaren locked out the front row of the grid for the first time since 2012.
Red Bull’s three-time champion Max Verstappen had to settle for third and the second row in the tense wet-dry qualifying
The 24-year-old Briton, who is 84 points behind Verstappen in this year’s title race, clocked a best lap in one minute and 15.227 seconds to outpace the Australian by 0.022 seconds.
Verstappen was three-hundredths of a second adrift in third ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who leaves the team at the end of the year, and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes, who will replace him.
Charles Leclerc, in the second Ferrari was sixth ahead of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll and the RBs of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, who had survived a high-speed crash earlier in Q3.
It was Norris’s second pole in four races and the third of his burgeoning career as he gains front-running experience in his bid to challenge Verstappen who, on Sunday bids to complete a hat-trick of Hungarian wins.
“I’m very happy with that and it wasn’t easy at all in difficult conditions so ending up on top is the best for us all and a great result for the team,” said Norris.
“We have come into this weekend confident we can do a good job so to be on pole is sweet.”
“It’s the first 1-2 for McLaren for a long time and an amazing result for us,” said Piastri. “I had a tricky day yesterday so for me it is nice to bounce back.”
Verstappen said: “I tried. We have been behind the whole weekend and I tried to make it as close as possible, but it wasn’t enough. I would have liked a bit more grip...”
After Friday’s sweltering conditions for practice, qualifying began in much cooler weather with temperatures and light rain falling.
The McLaren pair were first out on soft slick tires along with Kevin Magnussen in his Haas.
George Russell was also struggling before the session was red-flagged when Sergio Perez smacked the wall at Turn Eight, having lost control and made a sideways slide into the barriers in the second Red Bull.
For the under-pressure Mexican driver, it was another Q1 setback in a sequence of bad qualifying outings and came just seconds after Russell had saved his car sliding off at the same place as the rain intensified.
After a 12-minute break, the action resumed with Perez hanging on in ninth from his earlier efforts, before he suffered his fourth Q1 exit in six outings as he embarked on two racing weekends that many observers believe offer him a last chance to save his seat at Red Bull.
In a frantic finale to Q1, on a damp circuit, Russell managed to jump from 14th to 10th but it was not enough as others improved to leave him 17th and out, taking an early exit for the second year running at the Hungaroring along with Perez, 16th, Zhou Guanyu of Sauber and the two Alpines of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly who stayed in the pits.
Unexpectedly, Daniel Ricciardo was fastest for RB in the changing conditions while Norris was only 13th.
“I’m sorry about this session guys,” said Russell, who had asked for more fuel to prolong his running to three laps. “That one is on me.”
The Q2 segment started with Sainz on top, until Hamilton and then Verstappen took over, the Dutchman in 1:15.770, nine-tenths faster than Hamilton’s pole in 2023. Piastri went second only 0.015 off the pace.
On his second run, Norris took command in 1:15.540 while Hamilton struggled to survive in 10th and Haas’s Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas of Sauber, Williams’ Alex Albon, Sargeant and Magnussen missed the cut to the top-ten shootout.
All this left Norris and Verstappen to scrap for pole, as rain was forecast, and the Dutchman led them out to clock 1:15.555 before Norris cut that time by 0.328 with his lap in 1:15.227. It was provisional pole, as rain began to fall.
The world champion pushed to improve but stayed third as Yuki Tsunoda crashed at Turn Five in his RB to prompt a red-flag stoppage. It was a big accident, but the Japanese driver was unhurt.
Two minutes and 13 seconds remained, enough time for one more flying run as the marshals cleared the debris. In the event, as it drizzled, only Ricciardo improved his time to take ninth from his team-mate.
Lando Norris on pole as McLaren lock out ‘sweet’ Hungarian Grand Prix front row
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Lando Norris on pole as McLaren lock out ‘sweet’ Hungarian Grand Prix front row
- Red Bull’s three-time champion Max Verstappen had to settle for third
Bublik, Medvedev progress to second round of Dubai Tennis Championships
- Medvedev, the No. 3 seed this week, enjoyed a straight-sets victory over Juncheng Shang to set up last-16 tie with Swiss star Stan Wawrinka
- No. 2 seed Alexander Bublik needed only 66 minutes to see off Jan-Lennard Struff
DUBAI: Under the afternoon sun, the seeds blossomed. Day 2 of ATP 500 week at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships started with Daniil Medvedev showing clinical efficiency to dispatch China’s Juncheng Shang in little more than an hour. The Russian, seeded third this week and champion here in 2023, moved through the match with confidence to seal a 6-1, 6-3 win and set-up a last-16 tie with Stan Wawrinka.
Shang, the 21-year-old ranked World No. 262, has offered flashes of promise in recent months despite the inevitable growing pains of a young professional. In early January, he reached the quarterfinals in Hong Kong, a result that hinted at an upward trajectory, but consistency has since proved elusive and he had lost three of his previous four matches, including a 4-6, 2-6 defeat to Medvedev last week in Doha.
The rematch provided little reversal of fortune as Medvedev struck 20 winners and 10 aces, dictating play from the baseline and rarely allowing rallies to drift beyond his control. On serve, the World No. 11 was especially untouchable, capturing 81 percent of his first-serve points over the course of the contest to condemn Shang to consecutive defeats in subsequent weeks.
“Of course, I tried to play the same tactic (as last week) because if it works, you need to stick to it,” Medvedev said. “I knew he would of course try to adapt some things, so I tried to adapt to his adaptations and did that quite well. I saw he was struggling a bit at the end, but until then, I thought it was a fair match, and we were playing some pretty good points.”
For all the scoreboard’s lopsided tilt, there were moments of resistance. Early in the first set, the pair engaged in a bruising 34-shot rally — one of the longest exchanges of the tournament to date — that drew murmurs from the appreciative crowd. It was Medvedev, the former world No. 1, who ultimately claimed the point.
Asked where he feels the level of his game is coming into a tournament that features four other former Dubai champions as well as eight of the world’s top 20, Medvedev suggested he is more content than confident.
“Actually, I shouldn’t judge myself too much just now,” he said. “I lost a couple of matches lately and whenever you do it, you always feel like you are playing worse. I should try to pump myself up instead. I won 6-1, 6-3, so if we don’t put every point under the microscope, it was a good level in general, I look forward to the next match and raising my level even more.”
Medvedev had barely finished his post-match media duties when Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik, the world No. 10 and this week’s No. 2 seed, strolled onto the 5,000-capacity Centre Court to open his own campaign. Facing a “lucky loser” in Jan-Lennard Struff, Bublik was a picture of composure despite entering the tie on the wrong side of a 3-2 head-to-head record and having required three sets to get past the same opponent only a couple of weeks ago in Rotterdam.
Bublik, breaking his German opponent’s serve at the first opportunity, took an early 3-1 lead and refused to relinquish it, hitting six aces as well as saving three breakpoints. Battling throughout, Struff — ranked 70 places below his opponent in the world rankings — showed fight but could not level the tie. When his own service game was broken again in the ninth game, the first set went to Bublik 6-3.
Struff found his serve in the second set, hitting six aces of his own, but Bublik was not for budging and took his tally to 12 overall. With the set going with serve, the Kazakh eventually got the all-important break in the 10th to take the set 6-4 and seal comfortable passage to the second round.
“I think I played a solid match,” said Bublik, who lost in the Dubai final two years ago. “I mean, it's never easy to face Jan. I’m trailing a bit in the head-to-head, but I knew what I had to do. I knew what shots I have to execute to get more chances to win easily, and I think I did well in more important moments.”
Bublik is enjoying a career-high ranking of No. 10, but insisted he prefers to focus on his game, knowing the two factors are not mutually exclusive. “It’s just a number and if you play well, you’re going to have a better ranking,” he said. “If you start losing matches, the ranking is going to go down very quickly if everyone else plays well. So, for me, it’s more about keeping my game and enjoying the moment.”
