George Russell takes stunning pole as Red Bull suffer shocker

George Russell, Hungary — Photo: © LAT Images

Hungarian Grand Prix

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Russell takes stunning pole as Red Bull suffer shocker

The Mercedes driver delivered a brilliant final lap

Ewan Gale

Saturday 30 July 2022 17:03 Updated: 18:49

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George Russell took the first pole of his F1 career with a stunning lap as Red Bull endured a shocking Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying.

Russell gave Mercedes its best afternoon of the season so far with a brilliant lap time of a one minute, 17.377secs to beat Carlos Sainz to pole, with Charles Leclerc third.

But Max Verstappen limped around with a power issue to finish 10th, whilst team-mate Sergio Perez failed to make Q3.

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Sainz had looked to be in control of qualifying with Leclerc unable to match his efforts but with the very last lap of the session, Russell delivered a flawless drive to send Mercedes into euphoria.

For Verstappen, a lacklustre first lap of Q3 was good enough for only seventh before the championship leader complained of power problems on his out lap for his second attempt.

The Dutchman would never complete a lap as he slumped to the bottom of the timesheets in Q3, launching into an expletive-laden rant on team radio.

Lando Norris flew under the radar to finish fourth for McLaren to confirm the Woking-based team's improved pace.

Last year's winner Esteban Ocon headed Alpine team-mate Fernando Alonso on the third row of the grid.

Lewis Hamilton had been in the fight with his team-mate but a DRS issue forced him to abandon his final attempt at a flying lap and left him seventh, alongside former team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who made Q3 for the first time in six races for Alfa Romeo.

Daniel Ricciardo finished ninth, six-tenths adrift of team-mate Norris, with Verstappen completing the top 10.

Perez shocker after track limit debacle

Perez was eliminated in Q2 to give Red Bull a strategic headache for the grand prix after a muddled session for the Mexican.

His first lap was deleted for exceeding track limits at turn five, although replays seemed to show the RB18 was legal and on the white line.

The stewards reinstated Perez's lap but that effort was good enough only for ninth. On a set of used tyres, he was unable to leap up the order and eventually finished 11th, although accused Kevin Magnussen of impeding him at turn two.

Zhou Guanyu ended the session 12th ahead of Magnussen, who was unable to put the newly-upgraded Haas into the top 10.

Lance Stroll is the lead Aston Martin but was unable to advance on 14th whilst Mick Schumacher's unimproved Haas wound up 15th.

Vettel's repair job to no avail

As the track ramped up towards the end of the first session, the fight to avoid elimination was tight.

AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda finished 16th fastest, missing out on a place in Q2 by just 0.035s, with Alex Albon only a further 0.016s further back for Williams.

Sebastian Vettel's effort to help his Aston Martin mechanics repair his AMR22 after his FP3 crash was not rewarded - the German missing out by just 0.068s.

"No man, no man," was the cry on team radio upon being told of his elimination.

Pierre Gasly would have been safe for AlphaTauri had it not been for a deleted lap time for abusing track limits on his fastest lap, whilst FP3 pacesetter Nicholas Latifi was well on course for Q2 before a mistake at the final corner left the Canadian last on the grid.