Oscar Piastri qualified on the front row at the Hungarian GP after a shock pole position from Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc took pole at the Hungaroring, a welcome surprise in one of McLaren’s most dominant seasons in F1. Norris and Piastri looked set for another front-row lockout this weekend, given their pace in earlier practice sessions. However, changing conditions during Qualifying allowed the Ferrari to take advantage with an impressive final lap.
In the post-qualifying press conference, Piastri was asked to sum up what happened in Q3.
“Depends where you’re sat. If you’re sat where Charles is, fantastic. If you’re sat where I’m sat, bizarre and somewhat frustrating. But yeah, I mean, I think the conditions completely changed, and it was just weird. My first lap felt terrible because I was pushing too much and kind of with the wind direction from the first two sessions in mind. So, then I felt like I did a better job on the second lap of managing expectations, and it was even worse.
“So yeah, a bizarre session, but I need to look back and see what differences it made. Things definitely felt more tricky for myself as well in Q3, but I think for everybody it would have been difficult. So that’s not our excuse.”
Time lost between Q2 and Q3
The Australian driver lost half a second of lap time between Q2 and Q3, a massive margin in the 2025 season. He again faulted the changing weather conditions, saying that he failed to anticipate the change of wind direction in the corners.
“It’s kind of what I just explained. My first lap in Q3, I wasn’t that surprised that it was half a second off because of some, I mean, mistakes is probably harsh on myself, but just not predicting what the wind was going to do in certain corners maybe as well as I could have. But the second lap, I thought I did a better job of adjusting my expectations, and like I said, I didn’t go any faster. So yeah, a bit strange. One for us to look through, but it wasn’t very fun losing that half a second.”
Expectations for the race tomorrow
Despite the Hungaroring being a difficult track to overtake on, the current championship leader is confident that he can take the win from P2 on the grid.
“I’m pretty confident. It was good last year, so hopefully it can be good again this year. But yeah, like Charles said, there’s some rain around. We’ll see if that impacts the race. But I think our pace has been good, but Charles has been quick all weekend, in certain sessions. It is a very difficult track to overtake on, and it’s not going to be the easiest place to try and regain the lead.”
Traditionally, the inside line on the start-finish straight has lacked grip. But with the track being resurfaced, there may be more grip available on the new asphalt which could benefit Piastri’s race start at the Hungarian GP.
“It’s hard to know. It’s still off the racing line, so I expect it to still have the same problems. But we’ll have to wait and see.”
