HUNGARY STORY: From a Tough Friday to Pole in Budapest

We didn’t maximise every opportunity in Budapest, but pole position on Saturday still felt pretty special.

It’s fair to say Saturday’s qualifying result was surprising on two counts. Firstly, while we expected the car to perform well on the Soft tyre, we didn’t think pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix would be in reach.

And secondly, we didn’t expect to have a car on the penultimate row of the grid either. But that was the situation we found ourselves in on Saturday evening in Budapest. Therefore, it was a day of mixed emotions. Elation for securing a pole position one year on from our last – and at the same track – but also disappointment with the errors we made in Q1.

Despite that disappointment though the pace of the car was quite the turnaround from a very difficult Friday in which both drivers weren’t happy with the car balance – Lewis saying “the car wasn’t feeling great” and George admitting “we were struggling a bit for overall grip and the tyres didn’t feel like they were in the right window.”

Seeing that pole position lap unfold on Saturday was a sight to behold. Lewis was completely in the zone and had the grip he needed to nab first on the grid by just 0.003s.

It was a lap worthy of being record breaking, as Lewis now becomes the first driver in F1 history to score nine pole positions at a single circuit. It was also his 104th career pole position and first since Saudi Arabia in 2021.

He even lost his voice from shouting on the team radio afterwards!

“It feels like the first time,” Lewis said. “It’s amazing, this feeling. I feel so grateful to be up here because the team have worked so hard. It’s a big, big rollercoaster ride but none of us lost faith.”

But while we embraced the celebration of pole position, it was still a far from perfect session, with George being eliminated in Q1 after traffic issues in his final lap. We let him down and we spent time on Saturday reviewing the session to ensure we don’t make those same mistakes again.

“Q1 was messy,” said Toto. “We just put our cars in the wrong position.” We knew the Alternative Tyre Allocation and mandatory tyre compounds for Qualifying would throw up some surprises. But we didn’t expect those surprises to be both our cars being at either ends of the grid.

We also knew it would be a tough day on Sunday with very quick looking Red Bulls and a tight bunch of cars behind. We’d give it our best shot but realistically, we expected to be part of that chasing group.

It was a strong start from Lewis but Verstappen had a better one and his move down the inside made Lewis vulnerable from the McLarens behind, who both found a way through.

From there it was about trying to fight back while also keeping an eye on Perez moving through the field and an even more important issue - overheating. The brakes and Power Unit on both cars were impacted by this, the temperatures on Sunday being by far the warmest of the whole weekend.

To counteract some of these issues, both drivers had to employ a decent amount of lift and coast throughout the race. Lewis also struggled with car balance and understeer through to snap oversteer in the first stint. This enabled the McLarens to eke out an advantage.

However as the race progressed Lewis’ pace ramped up, especially in the final stint, and having lost a place to Perez, he was then able to move ahead of Piastri’s McLaren and was rapidly closing on the second Red Bull. In the end he just missed out on a podium, but it was quite the charge. Had everything gone well, a podium should have been on the cards. But nevertheless we scored good points.

“The balance of the car didn’t feel great on the first stint,” Lewis explained. “Then, bit by bit, as we got through the stints, the car started to become more driveable. And then the last stint was much better. If we’d had the pace we had at the end, we would have probably been a bit better.”

George’s race was all about doing something different to the cars ahead. He started on the Hard tyre, made up places on the opening lap and from there, put in a strong opening stint. As the race progressed, his pace also increased, and he made the most of his next two Medium tyre stints to carve through the field.

He crossed the line an impressive seventh and was elevated to sixth once Leclerc’s five-second time penalty was applied. 12 places gained over 70 laps helped us add more points to our haul and increase our advantage over our nearest rivals in the battle for P2 in the Constructors’ standings.

“P6 was beyond expectations,” George admitted. “The car was quick. We could have been right up there with Lewis yesterday and as a team, if you’ve got two cars on the front two rows, the dynamic changes totally. A small opportunity that was missed but nevertheless we’ll take that result.”

Now our focus quickly switches to Belgium and the iconic Spa-Francorchamps. We’ll be looking to take these learnings forward and make the most of every available opportunity.

Find out more about the upcoming 2023 Belgian Grand Prix here.