That lifted Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc from third to the front row.<\/p>\n
Mercedes Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli, fourth at the chequered flag, would have moved up to third place but he was also handed a three-place drop for speeding while yellow warning flags were waved and is set to start seventh.<\/p>\n
Lawson just misses top 10 start<\/p>\n
New Zealander Liam Lawson, who had finished in the top 10 in the three practice sessions, just missed out this time, qualifying 11th, only 0.126 seconds off 10th.<\/p>\n
“Terribly executed” was Lawson’s verdict on his qualifying effort.<\/p>\n
![\"Liam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/4JKVXBG_AFP__20260725__porzycki_f1hungar260725_npLN3__v1__HighRes__F1HungarianGrandPrix2026P_jpg.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson at the Hungarian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
NUR PHOTO VIA AFP<\/p>\n
“We were quite good in Q1 and the car has been really, really quick. And then I just locked up in the first lap and just a really bad second lap. It’s not a surprise, it’s just a shame as the car has been really, really good.”<\/p>\n
Lawson finished eighth at the Hungaroring circuit last year.<\/p>\n
McLaren benefits from car upgrades<\/p>\n
It was the first time this season, in the 11th round, that Mercedes had not secured pole for a grand prix.<\/p>\n
“Very happy to be back on top,” said Norris, last year’s winner in Hungary who now has a strong chance of repeating the feat at a circuit where overtaking is expected to be tricky with the new era of engines.<\/p>\n
“It’s been tight the whole weekend but we seemed quick from the first laps we did and we brought a few upgrades. I’m in the best position for the start. But these guys [Ferrari] get good starts and have been fast all season.”<\/p>\n
Leclerc, who won at Silverstone and was second in Belgium last weekend, will be the immediate threat to Norris, with last year’s runner-up Piastri and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on the row behind, with Hamilton fifth.<\/p>\n
Antonelli, the championship leader with six wins and 45 points clear of closest rival Hamilton, will now be behind teammate George Russell, who starts sixth.<\/p>\n
Hamilton, chasing a record-stretching 10th pole at a circuit where he has also won a record eight times, was fastest after the first runs but was unable to make that stick as Norris put in a final flying effort.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old was then summoned by stewards, with the conversation turning to damage limitation.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t know he was coming,” Hamilton said of Piastri. “I thought everyone had finished their lap. It wasn’t intentional.”<\/p>\n
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said it was the team’s mistake, with Hamilton not receiving the radio message in time.<\/p>\n
Verstappen spun at the end, forcing Antonelli and teammate George Russell to slow as yellow flags were waved – but not enough in the Italian’s case.<\/p>\n
“The yellow flag came while I was entering the corner so I tried my best to lift. I did lift but gave up quite a bit of minimum speed compared to before. It was a shame,” said the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n
Another blow for Russell<\/p>\n
Antonelli’s penalty gave an unexpected boost to Russell’s chances of closing the 50-point gap on his teammate, in the last race before the August break, after car gremlins had resurfaced.<\/p>\n
“We lost water pressure and I had a water leak. When I stopped on track, the car was leaking a load of water. We don’t know where it’s come from. Fingers crossed it doesn’t affect anything for tomorrow,” he said.<\/p>\n
Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar qualified eighth with rookie Arvid Lindblad ninth for Racing Bulls and Nico Hulkenberg completing the top 10 for Audi.<\/p>\n
Struggling Aston Martin made a minor breakthrough with Fernando Alonso, four days short of his 45th birthday, making the second phase of qualifying for the first time this season in the team’s upgraded chassis.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard will start 16th with teammate Lance Stroll 20th but at least ahead of both Cadillacs.<\/p>\n
– Reuters, with additional reporting from RNZ.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula One world champion Lando Norris put McLaren on pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix to end…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-544793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}