REPORT: Hungarian Qualifying Complete

A busy Qualifying session for the Hungarian Grand Prix had Carlos Sainz again reaching Q2 with a lap good enough for P13, while Alex Albon ended Q1 in P20.

Track evolution affected Q1, while a light drizzle hit the track to add drama to the start of a delayed Q2 in a session that had Carlos just a tenth away from reaching Q33.

It was a 1:15.781 effort for Carlos, and Alex set a 1:16.223 earlier in the session before exiting Q1.

The two Atlassian Williams Racing FW47s were the first cars to appear out of the pit lane as Qualifying began with a dark rain cloud in the distance.

Carlos locked up his front-right tyre at Turn 1 as he pushed to set his first time, leaving him with work to do after a 1:18.282 lap, while Alex dropped in a 1:17.441.

Using an extra set of Pirelli Soft rubber by the end of Q1, improvements for both our drivers had car No. 55 vaulting up the timing tower to P7 after setting a 1:15.652 on his third push lap.

Alex, however, didn't fare so well, putting in a 1:16.223 that ended his Saturday in P20 as Carlos slipped to P8.

Umbrellas went up in the grandstands of the first sector as light drizzle hit the track ahead of a slightly delayed Q2 to cause a queue in the pit lane.

Carlos ran a scrubbed Soft tyre for his opening lap, and the cooler temperatures saw his first push lap be a 1:16.264 good enough for P12.

A further pit lane queue had our remaining FW47 stuck at the exit of the Williams garage for some time, eventually being the final car to reach the track.

Carlos' half-second improvement wasn't enough to reach Q3, but he was only a tenth away from the top-10 shootout, ending the session in P13.

James Vowles spoke to Carlos on his in-lap, saying, "It's a good lap for us. I think we learned a lot about the tyres there. The gaps are tiny.

"A few milliseconds — You'll see when you get in. It's the other cars."

With Carlos running at the end of Q2, he had to navigate the remaining cars on track that were slowing on their way back to the pits.

Carlos concurred and said "Yeah, I agree. I think we did close to our best today."

Stepping out of the car after the session, Carlos shared his thoughts:

"After our struggles all weekend, I’ll take P13 today although it’s not ideal.

"We found some grip and put good laps in when it mattered, but it hurts to see we were less than a tenth from Q3.

"The lap was good, but a bit of traffic and dirty air in sector two probably cost us that extra bit.

"Anyways, I prefer to keep the positives from today and fully focus on tomorrow.

"There might be surprises with the weather, so we need to make sure we are ready to take any opportunity."

Alex gave his assessment on his tricky day by saying, "We knew it was going to be a tough track for us here and it’s been one of those weekends where we’ve been chasing it and I haven’t felt that comfortable in the car.

"We went back to the FP1 car for Qualifying as that’s where I felt it was most predictable, but maybe the track has evolved since then.

"We were too slow on the outlap, then there was a bit of rear tyre degradation and other things, so it was a bit scrappy.

"It’s going to be tricky from P20 but maybe we will get some rain. Let’s see."

James Vowles, Atlassian Williams Racing's Team Principal, said this after the session:

"A really interesting Qualifying session and we learned a lot today.

"You can see that the normal ordering of teams just isn't apparent here.

"We have one Ferrari on pole, the other not making it to Q3. You can see that there's a spread and, I've said this before, but the field is getting closer and closer.

"For Carlos, the gap between himself and getting through into Q3 was just 90 milliseconds, which is nothing in any world.

"Carlos did a brilliant job; it was about getting the tyres working and he was able to do so. It was a good effort in terms of trying various outlaps that led to the success of getting into Q2.

"With Alex, we tried a different direction and a different way of working the tyres, and we learned a lot thanks to his efforts.

"But it will come to us tomorrow. The car in a race condition should be better than where it is today.

"It also looks like there's rain on the forecast and in that condition, your qualifying place is less important than the ability to get the execution right on the day."