New Delhi: Charles Leclerc takes his career’s 27th pole position in the Hungarian Grand Prix for 2025. It marks the first time in five years that a Mercedes-manufactured engine hasn’t taken the pole position for the Sunday race. The Ferrari driver is followed by the two McLaren drivers, with the Driver’s championship leader, Oscar Piastri, in second and his teammate Lando Norris in third place.
Starting in the second row alongside Norris is Mercedes driver George Russell, with the two Aston Martin drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, will start in the third row. Gabriel Bortoleto, Max Verstappen, Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar complete the rest of the top ten.
The starting grid for Sunday’s race 👀
Don’t miss this one! #F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/NCLlzro8Gc
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 2, 2025
Charles Leclerc delivers an amazing final lap in Q3
Q3 began in an odd manner, with the drivers driving slower in the initial run, with McLaren drivers unable to replicate their previous session’s magic. The wind had changed direction, although Paistri had the provisional pole during the initial run. In the technical aspect, Verstappen even failed to overcome the difficulties for Red Bull.
Russell was feeling the heat from the two Aston Martin drivers, with the team delivering their best performance of the season. Fernando Alonso, in fact, at one point even sat between the two McLaren cars. Aston Martin set their time before anyone in the pack, and ultimately Norris did manage to jump ahead of the Spanish driver. While both Norris and Russell improved their timings, Piastri couldn’t, and Leclerc took his career’s best pole ever.
Lewis Hamilton’s poor Q2 outing puts him in 12th place
Q2 began a little late due to the track cleaning, and the Mercedes duo went out first with slight rain coming to play, which had disappeared by Q3. In the initial laps, the two McLaren cars had a big lead over the rest of the field. Third-placed Alonson was half a second behind Norris, with Piastri only 0.051 seconds behind. Verstappen was eighth with seven minutes left in the session and very close to the drop zone.
It was yet another poor outing for Lewis Hamilton, who has been the most successful driver around the Hungaroring with eight wins. He had ga ood pace like his pole-sitting teammate, but a mechanical failure stopped him from going to Q3 for the first time. He looked nowhere close to his teammate and was clearly disappointed over the radio. Provisionally, Carlos Sainz, Bortoleto, Kimi Antonelli and Franco Colapinto were provisionally here and changed a little in the end.
In Q2, Bortoletto was the 10th fastest and even went past Verstappen with Ollie Bearman, who initially had looked challenging, ultimately bowed out in Q2 at 11th by just 0.007 seconds. Antonelli’s timing was deleted, and he will start from 15th on Sunday. Sainz and Colapinto were behind Hamilton, with Williams driver managing to go ahead of Alpin right at Q2’s finish, and both got a boost with Antonelli’s fall. Only McLaren, Aston Martin and Racing Bulls had both drivers in the Q3.
Aston Martin shows improved pace
Even in Q1, qualifying was slow, with Williams being the first car on the track. Alex Albon was seen skidding on the dirty track in onboard cameras. With more cars coming out, the circuit started providing better grip, and the times tumbled.
With eight minutes left in the first session, Sainz, Yuki Tsunoda, Beamran, Pierre Gasly, and Esteban Ocon made up from the drop zone with a gap from Albon in 15th and Sainz only of 0.021 seconds. The track evolution was amazing, and the field had a major shake-up, and the gaps were of whiskers.
In the final laps, there was another shuffle in the drop zone. Tsunoda was only 0.163 seconds behind his teammate, who had set the 11th fastest lap in the session. The Japanese driver ultimately got eliminated. Alonso had the second fastest lap in the session while Stroll was ninth.
Bortoleto displayed good rhythm, which was clear even during the practice session and had the sixth fastest lap while Nico Hulkenberg got knocked out along with Gasly and Ocon. Albon completed his final lap much before the allotted time, and the Williams driver didn’t get the best of the track conditions starting in the last spot.