For the first time in almost a decade, McLaren has put both cars on the front row.
Not since Lewis Hamilton led Jenson Button to first and second on the grid at the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix has Woking locked out the front row of the grid.
In an interesting historical quirk, on that day 12 years ago it was Red Bull Racing in third too — then it was Mark Webber, now it’s Max Verstappen.
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But this weekend bears little other resemblance to that afternoon in Sao Paulo.
Then McLaren was at the beginning of a long decline. Today it’s close to having completed its comeback.
It does so in the context of a Red Bull program experiencing a minor crisis.
Sergio Pérez has crashed out of qualifying again. Yuki Tsunoda spent Saturday night resting after a big crash of his own. Max Verstappen is incensed that his team’s latest upgrade has done nothing to help it retake top spot.
But now the spotlight is on McLaren. Can it finally seize this moment, or is destined to let another chance slip?
PÉREZ SEES SILVER LINING DESPITE BUDAPEST BINNING
It was hard not to feel sorry for Pérez as his car crunched against the barriers just 11 minutes into Q1.
Pérez had been enjoying a better weekend in his upgraded RB20 ahead of qualifying, and you got the sense he was genuinely optimistic about getting his season back on track.
He spun that all away with a bite at the kerbs entering turn 8.
It couldn’t have come at a worse time for the Mexican, who is increasingly explicitly fighting to keep his seat after the mid-season break.
On a day Verstappen missed pole by 0.046 seconds, Pérez was knocked out in Q1 for the fourth time in the last six grands prix.
It’s also the fifth time at the last seven rounds that he hasn’t made it into Q3, in which time he’s managed a best qualifying result of eighth.
The mistake was relatively innocuous — slightly too much damp kerb at a high-speed corner around a track featuring unforgivably close barriers.
The problem for Pérez is that this isn’t the first time he’s made a relatively innocuous mistake and paid a significant price.
While conditions were tricky and the evolving track meant nothing could be taken for granted, Pérez shouldn’t have needed to be pushing so hard in a Red Bull Racing car so early in qualifying. That’s perhaps the bigger indictment than the clumsy crash.
That’s particularly so given he appeared to be having a genuinely better weekend up until qualifying — certainly more so than previous rounds where he’s claimed the same without evidence to back it up.
In practice he’d been thereabouts with Verstappen. He was just 0.115 seconds slower than the sister car after their first laps in Q1.
But promises of improvement mean nothing without results.
“It hurts, you know, that it happened again, especially in the run that I am going through,” he said, per ESPN. “But I’m determined to turn this around.
“Yesterday we had a really good day, very promising day, so I think we had very good information on the long runs so hopefully we can have some really good pace to come through the field and hopefully score some points.”
Overtaking is difficult in Budapest, and there’s a chance Pérez will end up starting from pit lane with component changes given the size of the impact.
A two-stop strategy is most likely given the hot forecast temperatures, which will at least give him a chance to do something different, perhaps get himself into clear air and maximise his car pace to give himself a shot at points.
Only a big drive into the points — preferably deep into the top 10 — could have Pérez walking away from this weekend feeling like he’d achieved something that could contribute to keeping his seat.
For a driver who hasn’t finished higher than eighth since the start of May, it’s a big ask.
Perez heartbreakingly crashes out of Q1 | 00:47
RICCIARDO LAST MAN STANDING IN VIRTUAL SHOOTOUT
In the first of two qualifying sessions that could define his career, Daniel Ricciardo — who could either be promoted to Red Bull Racing or end up out of a job after next week’s race — ended up as the happiest Red Bull-backed driver.
He got there by virtue of simply staying on the road in what might have been a massively important result.
After Pérez’s Q1 crash came Yuki Tsunoda’s big smash in the final minutes of Q3. The Japanese driver had been pushing hard to try to break clear of the fifth row when he ran wide exiting the parabolic turn 5.
His left wheels dipped onto the damp astroturf beyond the kerb, which sucked him away from the track, and his car was then launched dramatically into the barriers by the lip of the cement astroturf bed — a clear circuit safety hazard.
He walked away uninjured but was skipped some post-session media commitments on orders to rest after the impact.
The crash gifted Ricciardo an opportunity to qualify ahead of his teammate with a final lap after the red flag. He was the only driver to improve their time after the resumption.
It was a little fortunate, but Ricciardo has had good pace all weekend, including topping Q1 as the track dried. In regular conditions Tsunoda consistently had between 0.05 seconds and 0.1 seconds on the Australian, albeit brake problems in Q1 meant he started on the back foot.
Ricciardo is in the frame to replace Pérez, and while he appears to have no specific target, beating Tsunoda and scoring points — when the car is capable — is his aim.
He achieved the first of those missions by keeping calm while his chief rivals for the seat overreached.
Pérez pushed too hard too early in Q1 and paid the price.
Tsunoda likewise had little reason to be taking so much risk knowing that the run-off areas would be treacherously wet after intermittent showers.
The chances of him qualifying higher than ninth were slim. Just before he crashed he’d set his quickest first sector of the day. It was still slower than seven of the eight drivers ahead of him at the time, when the next-best car was 0.233 seconds up the road.
Tsunoda said at the start of the weekend that he didn’t think he was in contention to replace Pérez anyway, so perhaps this first big mistake of the season will amount to nothing anyway.
But if there was a sliver of a chance, he’ll have done little to change the minds of those critics at Red Bull Racing who believe he doesn’t have the aptitude to deal with the pressure of racing at the front.
Ricciardo, meanwhile, will have done his case no harm by getting the job done.
He now has to convert for points of course, but the Australian was optimistic in race trim RB could move forwards into the points — a timely chance for him to put his candidacy in lights
McLAREN WARY OF VICTORY THREAT DESPITE HISTORIC RESULT
Every time some disaster befalls McLaren’s motorhome, Lando Norris takes pole.
When it caught fire in Spain, he put it on first.
This week the roof was blown off by a storm, and now he leads a McLaren front-row lockout.
We’ve become used to McLaren performing at the front this season, but that this is the team’s first front-row lockout in almost 12 years underlines the significance of this result. It’s the latest milestone in Woking’s recovery, which feels so close to being complete.
The McLaren car was in its element on a cooler, overcast and drizzly Saturday. We’ve seen it excel in conditions like this before — in Canada, where Norris should have easily won, and likewise in Britain two weeks ago, where only a strategy calamity prevented either him or Piastri from converting.
But Norris was also in a league of his own, his 0.022-second margin over this teammate and 0.046-second advantage over Verstappen misleading due to the timing of the Tsunoda red flag.
Both Piastri and Verstappen got a second lap in just before the session was suspended. Norris didn’t.
At the end of their first laps Norris had a whopping 0.328-second advantage over Verstappen.
Piastri had been 0.636 seconds adrift, though he’d made a mistake at turn 4 that killed his lap. Up to that point he’d been only 0.06 seconds off the pace.
This was McLaren domination and a Norris masterclass.
But as we’ve seen all year, McLaren getting in front is one thing. Staying there to the chequered flag is quite another.
And putting aside the team’s propensity to miss its chances this year, the grand prix is unlikely to be as easy as qualifying ultimately was.
The weather cooled dramatically for Saturday, but on Sunday it’s forecast to return to being sunny and hot — conditions in which McLaren’s edge looked blunted on Friday.
“[On Friday] it was quite tricky trying to manage the tyres even over one lap,” Piastri said. “You could have destroyed them basically in half a lap.
“Today was a little bit more forgiving let’s say, but tomorrow I think it’s going to be much more like yesterday in terms of weather, so it changes the game a little bit.”
That could swing the race back towards Verstappen.
McLaren, however, has the Pérez advantage — that is, it has both drivers in the fight against Verstappen’s lone car.
“Two cars at the front row, we can control it from there,” Norris said. “So as long as we stay where we are, we’ll be happy.”
That could spell bad news for Piastri — or for whichever of the McLaren drivers ends up second at the first turn.
The second car will likely be deployed to contain Verstappen at some point to ensure victory. With the rest of the field so much further back, it would be unlikely to cost a podium, but it would probably end that driver’s victory hopes.
And that’s one of the other things McLaren still has to prove: that it can manage both its drivers when victory is on the line.
‘WAKE UP’: VERSTAPPEN’S VENTS AT TEAM AFTER POLE MISS
With Pérez long in the walls, Verstappen ensured Red Bull Racing had little to smile about when he crossed the line in Q3 and found himself dropping from second to third on the grid.
The margin looked close, but in reality the Dutchman was never really in contention for the front row. McLaren was too strong. Red Bull Racing didn’t have the pace.
Verstappen banged his hands on his steering wheel in frustration. This weekend the team has brought a major upgrade package to the car, parts it had completed more than a month early to try to stem the bleeding of points to McLaren.
“For sure they work,” Verstappen said. “But we’re still not first, so we need more. It’s as simple as that.
“Looking back at my qualifying, I was very happy with the laps, but balance-wise, everything is really on the edge.
“I’m pushing as hard as I can, and then of course you have little moments here and there.
“I feel like I probably push harder than I did last year, but it’s just not coming anymore to have these great lap times, so I guess it just means that we are a bit slower.
“We have work to do. Simple as that.”
This is Red Bull Racing’s new reality. It no longer has the fastest car.
It’s not one that’s going down well with the reigning world champion.
Speaking to the written media away from the press conference, Verstappen ripped into his team for the lack of performance.
“I don’t think everyone understands the situation,” he said, per the UK Express. “With me, they know that I don’t make excuses, I’m always very realistic.
“Maybe not everyone is on the same wavelength. I think that some people might need to wake up a little.
“If you want to become world champion, it has to go better than this.”
Red Bull Racing’s advantage has dissipated quickly. It’ll be interesting to see how this affected Verstappen’s relationship with his team.
Source Agencies
