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Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took a sensational, surprise pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix ahead of McLaren’s title contenders Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.<\/b><\/p>\n
Leclerc, nowhere near the McLaren’s pace until the final part of qualifying, pipped Piastri by just 0.026 seconds.<\/p>\n
Norris, 16 points adrift in the championship, was 0.015secs behind his team-mate.<\/p>\n
Mercedes’ George Russell was fourth, ahead of a superb performance from the two Aston Martins, with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll locking out the third row.<\/p>\n
Leclerc’s team-mate Lewis Hamilton failed to progress beyond the second knock-out session and will start 12th.<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, struggling all weekend, was eighth, behind Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto.<\/p>\n
Told he was on pole position by his engineer Bryan Bozzi, Leclerc was incredulous. “What?” he replied. “Mamma mia.”<\/p>\n
Once out of the car, he said: “I have no words, it is probably one of the best pole positions I’ve ever had because I did not expect that.<\/p>\n
“Today I don’t understand anything in F1. The whole qualifying has been extremely difficult. And when I say that, it is not an exaggeration.<\/p>\n
“It was difficult for us to get to Q2 and it was difficult to get to Q3. In Q3, the conditions changed a little bit, everything became a lot trickier and I knew I had to just do a clean lap to target third and it ended up pole position, I definitely cannot believe that.”<\/p>\n
Piastri said: “The wind did a 180 from Q2 to Q3, which changed the circuit. Difficult to judge in those conditions. I was a bit surprised we couldn’t go quicker than that.<\/p>\n
“Charles has been quick all weekend, and this morning (in final practice) he was closer than we expected. I wasn’t expecting to be second to a Ferrari this weekend but he’s done a good job.”<\/p>\n
Norris added: “Charles did a good job on that last lap, probably risked a bit more in the conditions, the wind changed a lot and punished us. We thought we did a good job on the laps but we were just slow.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n