Luke’s Weekend Take – Hungarian GP 2024

Onto Saturday now as in FP3 we get going again for the final practice of the weekend ahead of Qualifying and mid-way through the session we see nothing out of the ordinary apart from a few lockups from Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly, both into Turn 1 as it seems they didn’t have the optimal tyre temperature and when they went to brake, they found their front right tyre locking up and as a result go wide into Turn 1. Later that session when it was time to start doing the qualifying runs, it was McLaren winning the race as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were occupying the Top 2 slots only separated with 0.044 seconds and the closest person to them was Max Verstappen who was nearly 3 tenths off the pace. His teammate Sergio Perez was worse off as he was 0.856 seconds off Norris’s time and found himself in 13^th.

Towards the end of the session we see a brief Yellow Flag in Sector 2 as we see a replay of Lewis Hamilton having a bit of a spin on Turn 9 as going round it he found himself losing the rear 2 times and although he managed to correct the first time, this put him off line and then he spun a bit into the grass, luckily for Hamilton he was able to keep it out of the barriers and managed to get going again after the track was clear. Zhou Guanyu with 2 minutes left was called into the pits and was told to come in slowly and to keep the car in gear sounding like there was a hydraulic issue with the car and Zhou was seen making it back safely into the garage. Verstappen on a last minute attempt to better his time was seen have a massive lock up into Turn 1 similar to Leclerc and Gasly earlier in the session ruining his hot lap attempt and the set of tyres he was on. No one was able to go faster the McLarens and the session ended with Lando Norris on top once more followed by Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen.

Into Qualifying now and there has been a bit of a surprise as an hour before qualifying it started raining and it has gotten much lighter and inters are expected to make an appearance however when the cars came out to queue at the end of the pit, everyone was out on the softs straight away and Valtteri Bottas on his out lap confirms that it is dry enough for slicks. Ahead of the start of Piastri’s push lap, his engineer warns him that some rain will be coming at the end of his lap and making sure that this lap counts, and the visor agrees with the engineer as we see some drops of rain straight away. Drivers are all trying to get their laps in as quick as possible as rain was getting more intense.

We see a bit of a Yellow Flag in Q1 as Logan Sargeant has a bit of a moment as he locks up going into Turn 1 and doesn’t manage to slow it down in time and goes into the barriers and damaging his front wing a bit, he manages to get the car going and into the pits and Williams has a front wing ready for him and to make sure that the car is ok. With 7 minutes left on the session we see another Yellow Flag, this time in Sector 2 and we cut to a picture with Perez in the wall at the exit of Turn 8. On the Replay we see Perez hit a bit of a wet patch and lose the car going straight into the wall rear first and ending his session early. Perez at the time of the crash was in 9^th place so he will probably make it through to Q2 but won’t be able to set any more times due to the damage. Also helping Perez still make it to Q2 to start in 15^th was the rain getting worse and DRS being disabled and unless the rain completely stops and track dries off very quick, we will see the bottom 5 exit Q1. Everyone barring a few drivers still went out as we see Russell manage to improve on his time so there were no risks to be taken. Drivers did manage to improve a lot on their times and in the end of Q1 we end up losing Sergio Perez, George Russell, Zhou Guanyu, Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly as Alpine did a huge mistake not going out at the end of Q1. Russell apologises to the team saying that it was on him for going out probably due to him going out on track too early.

In Q2 we see the drivers back out and DRS is now reenabled, and after the first runs in Q2 we see drivers hitting the 1 minute 15s with Max Verstappen leading the charge, followed by Oscar Piastri who was only 0.015 seconds adrift from Verstappen on used tyres where Verstappen’s time was set on a brand new set and Carlos Sainz in 3^rd place in the first runs. At the end of the session in Q2 we see Norris topping the charts followed by Verstappen and Piastri and we lose Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Alex Albon, Logan Sargeant and Kevin Magnussen.

Weather alert comes up at the start of Q3 saying rain expected in 5 minutes and all drivers are out. Verstappen also gets a radio message from his engineer to make the lack of Tow count. And Alonso also gets the warning about the rain telling him that 2^nd run will be impacted by rain. After the first runs we see Norris taking provisional pole by 3 tenths followed by Verstappen and Piastri. Norris is really on form in qualifying. Verstappen reports light drizzle coming into the pits for the last runs. Due to the rain threat the drivers refuel, change their tyres and do the last setup changes and unlike any other weekend they do not wait for the last moments, and they get back out there.

On the 2^nd runs we see Piastri improve his time into 2^nd and Verstappen improved his time but was still only good enough for 3^rd. Norris was lining up for a lap as soon as Verstappen was finishing his but we see a Yellow Flag in Sector 2 and we cut to Yuki in the barriers and the Red Flag is out with 2 minutes left. Yuki goes a bit wide in Turn 5 and seems to have gone on the grass and as soon as he came off the grass and onto the concrete, he seems to have gone airborne and the goes into the barriers. Getting some significant damage. Teams get information that session will restart, and cars get queuing at the end of the pitlane as not everyone will make it round to the start finish line in time and McLaren are 1 and 3 in the queue to make sure and protect their front row lockout. Piastri also gets a radio message to warn him that others will try to race him on the outlap. Session restarts and no one barring Ricciardo was able to improve on their times due to the rain and we see Lando Norris taking pole position followed by Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll, Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda forming the Top 10 tomorrow.

Who do you think will be able to come out on top tomorrow in the race? Can Lando Norris convert this pole into a second win this season and his career? He should have won the last 2 races but due to some mistakes from him and the team he has been unlucky. Tune in for the post-race review to find out.