Winners and losers from 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying

A dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying session took place on Saturday that saw McLaren lock out the front row, and Sergio Perez crash out in Q1, with Yuki Tsunoda also having a hefty collision with the barrier in Q3.

With plenty of stories from up and down the grid, let’s take a look at our winners and losers from the session as rain fell, unexpected early exits occurred and a front-row lockout was achieved.

Winners and losers from 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying

Winners

McLaren

From a team’s perspective, it doesn’t get any better than a front-row lockout with the drivers separated by a couple of hundredths of a second, does it?

For McLaren , they earned that ideal scenario by executing an excellent qualifying session through navigating tough conditions throughout, and it was Lando Norris who had initially gone three tenths clear of Max Verstappen and six tenths clear of team-mate Oscar Piastri after the first runs.

Come the end of the session, however, the three drivers were separated by just 0.046s, Piastri right on his team-mate’s tail and expressing his own frustration at not getting pole – a sign the young Australian is gathering his own momentum at the moment as he looks for his own first career victory.

Nonetheless, it was a landmark moment for McLaren as they celebrate their first front-row lockout since the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, but one suspects they won’t care about that too much if they cannot convert that to victory on Sunday.

Aston Martin

A second double Q3 appearance in a row for Aston Martin, and with Fernando Alonso saying after the session that the upgrades they brought to Hungary looked like they had an impact, perhaps now is a moment to say they look like they have turned a corner.

While the Silverstone-based team have fallen back in the competitive order this season, it must be said that the amount of work that has gone into bringing more updates to the car than last season has certainly not gone unnoticed.

For this latest package for the Hungaroring, while Alonso had been initially critical of his car’s balance in practice, the team seems to have made progress – over one lap at least.

Alonso said: “I think we have to be pleased with seventh and eighth positions today and both cars inside the top ten again. We brought some updates to the car this weekend and it appears to have made us more competitive so far.

“We also made some setup tweaks overnight to accommodate the new package and these worked well.”

Liam Lawson

While it’s never ideal to be the beneficiary of somebody else’s misfortune, the ‘Piranha Club’ world of Formula 1 is such that a day like Saturday will make Liam Lawson do even more than he is already to put his name in the frame for 2025.

Even though he is not driving full-time in a series this season, his recent filming day with Red Bull and other TPC (testing of previous car) opportunities with the team are keeping him in the loop for any opportunities that do arise.

We’ll come to Sergio Perez and his crash shortly, but like a metaphorical theatre understudy waiting for his break on the big stage, when the person filling the role is currently fluffing their lines on a semi-regular basis, it’s becoming increasingly understandable from an outsider’s perspective for as to why Lawson would be knocking at the director’s door in this scenario.

More from the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend so far

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 starting grid: What is the grid order for the 2024 Hungarian Grand Prix?

Losers

Sergio Perez

Sorry, Checo, even though Yuki Tsunoda had a big crash in Q3 that also brought out the red flags, it had to be so.

Christian Horner had given rightful praise to his driver for his most positive Friday running for quite some time around the Hungaroring, but come Q1 on a greasy track surface on slick tyres, as was the exact case at Silverstone a fortnight ago, it all came to an abrupt halt.

Horner, revealingly, said he and Perez spoke in his kitchen about how things have been recently and that Perez had admitted he has been “overthinking things a bit too much” on track.

As any person who’s going through a phase of overthinking in life will tell you, the worst thing you can hear is to be told to ‘think less’ and do what comes naturally, and in the Red Bull driver’s case, especially after an identikit exit from qualifying for the second race running – and even more so when the pressure appears to be on in such a way.

So, for now, we’ll abide by the cliché in Formula 1: The points come on a Sunday – and Perez knows above everyone else he needs some come the chequered flag in Budapest.

George Russell

From being at the top of the ‘winners’ list in this column at Silverstone for his brilliant pole position, it’s the other end of the scale for George Russell this time around as he could not make it out of Q1 on an improving track.

He had asked Mercedes over team radio: “Why are we not putting enough fuel in the car to complete the session, guys? Traction is getting better and better,” but took responsibility for ultimately exiting qualifying, saying: “Yeah, sorry about this session, guys. It’s on me.”

Team principal Toto Wolff was not best pleased about how the session unfolded from the team’s perspective, labelling it a “total underperformance from everyone involved” as the Silver Arrows lost one of their cars early, while Lewis Hamilton will line up P5 on Sunday.

Mercedes had mastered the changing conditions at the last round to lock out the front row, but it wasn’t to be this time around.

Alpine

Another underwhelming Saturday for Alpine, who will lock out the back row of the grid after neither of their drivers were sent back out onto the circuit after the red flags were waved following Perez’s shunt in Q1.

With rain in the air, there was at least some rhyme and reason behind not wanting to risk going out, but it quickly became apparent the rain would not be enough to make the track wet enough for intermediate tyres, and the drivers were finding huge chunks of time as the surface yielded improvements later on.

This saw Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly both fall down to the bottom of the standings to lock out the back row, and it was a strategic gamble that quickly backfired.

Read next: Hungarian GP: Lando Norris bags pole in qualy, disaster for Sergio Perez and George Russell