F1 Qualifying RESULT: George Russell achieves impressive first pole position in Formula 1 at the Hungarian Grand Prix

George Russell took the first pole position of his Formula One career for Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix with a sensational lap in Budapest.

The 24-year-old beat Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz by just 0.044 seconds, with Charles Leclerc third. Russell’s Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton qualified seventh with Max Verstappen tenth on the grid after suffering mechanical problems.

Sainz and Leclerc seemed to have secured a front-row lockout for Ferrari only for Russell to pull off a stunning result with a brilliant final lap at the Hungaroring.

“Come on whoooo come on yeah beauty beauty,” Russell said over the radio, unable to hide his delight at his first pole and Mercedes’ first of the season. Amazing. We needed that.”

Verstappen locked up at Turn 2 on his opening run in Q3, finishing 1.7sec behind and later reporting that he had no power as he prepared for his final attempt. “Nothing works,” he yelled, unable to improve on his first attempt in Q3.

Mercedes struggled to keep up the pace in practice, but Russell pulled off one of his career laps, finishing eight-tenths ahead of Hamilton, to take first place for Sunday’s 70-lap race.

“I don’t think it’s a big problem, but it’s something that we couldn’t solve on the track. There was a lot of analyzing what was going wrong yesterday. The car has been better today for the handling and this track does not suit us. I still would have liked to start in Q3, we had pace, good lap but the small mistake made me start tenth.

“It can be difficult if you’re stuck. We have to stay calm and wait for our moments to move on. It depends a bit on what’s going on in front of you and behind you, we just have to stay on top of it.”

“It’s one of those where you go into the first corner, the tires in a good window, then the lap time just keeps coming. I haven’t had any of those laps all year, I’ve had a few with Williams. To do that before the summer break, with morale low on Friday, we’ve turned it on its head!

“Tires have been a limiting factor for so many teams. We did it on the last lap of Q3. Six and seventh improved tenths, wow! Hearing my engineer talking on the team radio was pretty special.

“There may be some things we did last night that will hurt our race pace, we really don’t know. It’s a whole different ball game, it could be one stop, it could be three stops. Take it turn by turn, step by step.

The Ferraris looked really strong on Friday, obviously difficult for Max. It’s going to be fast. The Ferraris can split the strategy: we just have to be quick. If we are fast we can win, it is as simple as that!”

“Very frustrating. A crash in race one for Max immediately put us at a disadvantage, but we felt confident, but unfortunately a power related issue on his out lap, it wasn’t going to be such a representative time for Max in Q3. .10th and 11th so busy race tomorrow.Congratulations to George Russell, nice lap.

“Theoretically, I think Max was at least fourth, we could have had a chance on the front row. It happened today, not tomorrow, we will race hard from there and give it our all.”

“I was feeling really good, the front row was definitely there. It would have been incredible, but these things happen: congratulations to George, given everything we’ve been through, it’s huge. We definitely did not expect that!”

“We need to write down everything we did this morning, including the food and drinks we had! We saw from the start of qualifying that our tires were in the right window. The confidence was there with the car.

“It’s a solid result, let’s see what we can do with it tomorrow. If we can keep up, I think we will be part of the games on the front lines again. If we can hold position early, first out of lap one, why can’t we win this?

“We haven’t been in the hunt for wins this season, Max is also a bit further back, which isn’t bad, but he will be highly motivated as will Lewis.

“We have a very big points difference behind Max, but then you can see how fast he is going today – we will never give up! We oscillate between depression and exaltation…”

What a change for Mercedes after a disastrous performance in both practice sessions on Friday and problems in the wet before that.

Hamilton, by the way, had problems with his DRS in qualifying, which affected his second lap of Q3…

“On the moon, absolutely exciting! Yesterday was probably our worst Friday of the season, but the last lap, mega turns 1 and 2, the lap time just kept coming, it was an amazing feeling!

“We need to understand where that came from. There are no ranking points. We have a good race pace, but the Ferraris are fast, it was definitely a very special day!”

“We have the pace, the start and tire management will play a key role. Mercedes’ pace is a bit unknown, but I think it will be an exciting race!

It has not been the best day. The pace is there, we need to understand what went wrong with the tires today and I’m sure we can come back tomorrow…