F1 Starting Grid 2022 Hungarian Grand Prix

Event: Hungarian F1 Grand Prix
Track: Hungaroring circuit

Warm-up lap starts at: 15:00 Local | 15:00 CET | 14:00 UK | 06:00 LA | 22:00 Tokio

George Russell celebrates his maiden F1 pole position in Hungary

He did it! Mercedes driver George Russell scored his very first pole position on the Hungaroring today. After yesterday's bad second free practice, things looks rather bad for the Mercedes team being 8th and 11th on the timesheets.

But the team from Brackley now seemed to have cracked the code to get the W13 also working during qualifying  and scoring their first pole of the 2022 season. Russell's first run in Q3 was already good enough for P2, but in his final run the track got a lot quicker and the British driver even outqualified both Ferrari driver who were the sheer favourites to score pole position for tomorrow's 2022 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix. He even overqualified his  pole king teammate Lewis Hamilton who scored an amazing 103 pole positions in total.

2022 F1 Constructors' Championship leaders Red Bull Racing experienced their worst quali session of the season. Max Verstappen had an engine problem on his final lap and will start from P10 if nothing has to be replaced on his power unit. His Mexican teammate Sergio Pérez even didn't make it into Q3 and starts from P11.

F1 Starting Grid 2022 Hungarian GP

*Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri #10 Required to start from the pit lane - Car modified whilst under Parc Fermé conditions and additional power unit elements have been used.

✅ Don't forget to check out our 2022 Hungarian F1 Grand Prix preview info.

How did Russell won his maiden pole?

Mercedes driver George Russell took his debut pole at the end of a tense qualifying session at the Hungaroring. Following earlier rain, the track dried in time for the start of qualifying at 4pm CET, with all the drivers using the P Zero Red soft tyre from start to finish.

Conditions were cool throughout the day, but warmed up slightly during the qualifying hour, with the session ending in 24 degrees ambient and 33 degrees of track temperature. The FP3 session was held in wet conditions, topped by Williams driver Nicholas Latifi on the intermediates in the closing stages.

The Pirelli Pole Position Award was presented by nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen from Denmark, a former single-seater racer who went on to become the king of endurance racing. This weekend also marks Pirelli’s biggest event, the Spa 24 Hours in Belgium, where the Italian firm brings 17,000 tyres to equip all the classes. Kristensen competed at the Spa 24 Hours only once, 10 years ago, finishing the 2012 event sixth overall in an Audi R8.

Possible 2022 Hungarian F1 GP Race Strategy

The 70-lap Hungarian Grand Prix could be either a one-stopper or a two-stopper. With cooler weather tomorrow, yesterday’s practice running suggests that the soft could be a viable race tyre, as part of either a one-stop or a two-stop strategy. A one-stopper could be soft to hard, or medium to hard (which requires a bit less management over the opening stint). Most drivers will probably stop only once, in order to safeguard track position.

But a two-stopper is also a good option, very close to a one-stopper in terms of overall time. The obvious two-stopper would be soft-medium-medium, but soft-medium-soft is another interesting option – with the cars much lighter towards the end of the race.

Pirelli's Motorsport Director - Mario Isola said:

“Congratulations to George for his first pole: he put together an ideal lap at exactly the right moment to secure a P1 start tomorrow. Today hasn't been easy with the changing conditions: although it was dry for qualifying, tomorrow’s weather is still uncertain, with cool conditions expected again. With the track ‘reset’ as a result of the earlier rain, we saw a lot of track evolution during qualifying, which meant that setting a fast lap at the last possible moment was key to getting a good time.”

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