Leclerc shocked by F1 Hungarian GP pole after “horrible” qualifying

Charles Leclerc was left distinctly flabbergasted by his own run to a “most surprising” Formula 1 pole at the Hungarian Grand Prix, having claimed that qualifying had felt “horrible” until he’d managed to reach Q3.

The Monegasque was on the cusp of the drop zone during Q2, but managed to dig out a lap good enough to progress to the final stage – just as team-mate Ferrari Lewis Hamilton fell out of the top 10.

And, after the opening runs of Q3, Leclerc was sixth in the order – but the drivers had noted that the wind direction had changed significantly for the final stage of qualifying.

Leclerc’s aim was to secure a clean lap to ensure he could make his way up the order; he did so to claim provisional pole with a 1m15.372s, but this was still shy of the 1m14s that the McLarens had logged in Q2.

However, neither Lando Norris nor Oscar Piastri were able to reprise their form from that session as the change in conditions appeared to disadvantage the brace of MCL39s.

“Today is a day where I don’t understand anything anymore about the sport,” Leclerc said. “I mean, honestly, qualifying felt horrible from the first lap to maybe the penultimate lap. 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, barely made it to Q2. Q2, I was on the limit and I did quite a big mistake in Turn 4. It wasn’t easy to get to Q3.

“And then Q3, the conditions changed for everybody. I basically just did a clean lap, and I think it was a really good lap because those conditions were very difficult to get everything right. And I did, but I was really happy about the lap.

“And it’s probably the most surprising pole position I’ve ever done. I think after FP3 it wouldn’t have been so surprising but, after Q1 and Q2, I really thought we would struggle to get into the top five even. So I’m very happy.”

Leclerc hails effect of Spa suspension upgrade

Leclerc reckoned that his and Ferrari’s first grand prix pole of the season vindicates the work that the team has done in the background to turn around its SF-25 chassis, particularly noting the suspension upgrade introduced in Belgium.

He added that the upgrade has allowed him to stop taking “extreme” approaches to the set-up of his car, and that the more “reasonable” baseline that he runs with now has brought back some of his edge in qualifying.

“It’s a big boost,” said Leclerc. “I mean, the team has been pushing like crazy to bring upgrades. Last weekend, the team have brought an upgrade as well, and it helped us to go in the right direction.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

“We didn’t know how much. And as I said in Spa, I think we need to judge over a few races and not only one.

“But I also think that the upgrade in Spa definitely helped me to extract a little bit more. And as I’ve been saying often before Spa, I had to set up the car in a very, very extreme way early on in the season to try and extract something out of this car in qualifying.

“However, it was making everything very inconsistent and I was struggling to be on top of the car all the time. The upgrade helped me to be a bit more in a reasonable window car-wise, and it feels like it’s fitting a little bit more the way I drive in qualifying when I start pushing.

“And that’s really important because since the beginning of the season, I’ve been struggling particularly in quali, which is normally one of my strengths.”