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Mercedes locked out the front row with Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in first and second on the medium tyres for the race.
The two Red Bull’s of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez claimed the second row as the duo, alongside the rest of the top 10, will start tomorrow’s Grand Prix on the soft tyres.
Q1
Yuki Tsunoda was the first driver out of the pit lane for his first run in Q1. He was followed shortly after by Nikita Mazepin and the two Alfa Romeo’s of Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi.
The AlphaTauri driver set a 1:18.163, but his time was swiftly eclipsed by the Alfa Romeo’s as Raikkonen jumped up to first, one-tenth ahead of his teammate Giovinazzi.
Later on in the session, the front-runners came out and set their first competitive lap times of Q1. Bottas was the first driver over the line as he set a 1:16.610, however, the Finn slowly dropped down to third as both Verstappen and Hamilton went quicker. The Red Bull man set three purple sectors to move up to first with a 1:16.214 lap time.
With five minutes to go, Verstappen stayed at the top of the timing charts and the two Mercedes of Hamilton and Bottas rounded out the top three in second and third respectively.
Perez had to go for a second run as he was compromised on his first lap, but the Mexican failed to improve on his position as he remained ninth, one second behind his Red Bull teammate.
For the first time this season, George Russell failed to make it out of Q1 as the Williams driver finished qualifying in 17th. The drivers that were knocked out of qualifying alongside Russell were: Yuki Tsunoda, Nicholas Latifi, Nikita Mazepin and Mick Schumacher.
Q2
The two Mercedes drivers were out of the pit lane first as they were followed by the two Red Bull’s and Raikkonen for the first runs in Q2.
Bottas was the first to set a competitive lap time with a 1:17.083. Hamilton went five-tenths faster to move up to first with Verstappen in second, two-tenths slower than his Championship rival.
The Finn dropped further down the order as Vettel and Gasly moved ahead of the Mercedes driver, but the duo both had soft tyres fitted on whilst Bottas ran the mediums.
Charles Leclerc set a rapid time of a 1:16.725 as he put his Ferrari into second before the session was red-flagged after Carlos Sainz crashed into the barrier on the entry of turn 14 to end his qualifying completely.
Five minutes remained on the Q2 clock, Hamilton lead the session after setting a 1:16.553 with Leclerc and Verstappen rounding out the top three.
In the dying embers of the session, the drivers came out for their final runs of Q2. Bottas went quicker to move up to second but slowly dropped down the pack as everyone was able to find time around a ramping up track.
Daniel Ricciardo, Lance Stroll, Kimi Raikkonen, Antonio Giovinazzi and Carlos Sainz were all knocked out as the top 10 entered the business end of qualifying.
Q3
Pierre Gasly emerged out of the pit lane first as he was closely followed by Lando Norris for their first runs in the pole position shootout.
The Frenchman set a 1:16.999, close to two-tenths faster than the McLaren man who went out on a used set of soft tyres.
It was advantage Mercedes as Hamilton set three purple sectors to put his car onto provisional pole with a 1:15.419.
With five minutes to go, the two Mercedes drivers locked out the front row with Lewis Hamilton ahead of Valtteri Bottas. Max Verstappen was third, Sergio Perez in fourth, Charles Leclerc in fifth, Esteban Ocon in sixth, Pierre Gasly in seventh, Fernando Alonso in eighth, Lando Norris in ninth and Sebastian Vettel in 10th.
The Aston Martin of Vettel came out alone and moved himself up to eighth place ahead of Alonso and Norris. No one in the top three improved as Mercedes claimed a front-row lockout with Hamilton ahead of Bottas. Verstappen and Perez claimed an all Red Bull second-row ahead of Gasly in fifth, Norris in sixth, Leclerc in seventh, Ocon in eighth, Alonso in ninth and Vettel in 10th.
What’s Next?
Tomorrow’s Grand Prix looks to be a cracker as a strategy battle has already formed with the Mercedes drivers starting on the mediums and the Red Bull’s on the soft.
The warm weather will most definitely force the teams into making two stops during the race and track position will likely decide who the race winner will be at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
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