Hungary: Qualifications Seen from the Stands

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Pole position

Nico Rosberg – 4th

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: « First of all, I want to compliment the engineers, the drivers, and all our technicians who are at the factory for the work done so far this weekend. We had a lot of work to do here to understand the tires, and we have made progress in every session, improving our understanding lap by lap. We are still on a good improvement curve and hope that we can do even better tomorrow. Lewis delivered an exceptional lap at the end of qualifying; it was an impressive performance. Nico did a good job as well, especially considering he had a problem in the middle of his lap with the car – and the good news is the way our drivers are fighting together to reach new goals. We know we have a tough race ahead of us tomorrow, with record temperatures expected, and it will be an opportunity to see exactly the progress made. »

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Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Mark Webber – 10th

Thierry Salvi – Renault Sport: « The high temperatures brought some difficulties, particularly with the car’s cooling system. However, Sebastian delivered a superb performance to put the car in second position on the grid. We were not far from pole, and the pace we showed during practice gives us hope for tomorrow. We are disappointed for Mark and his 10th place, but we had KERS issues from Q1. We will do our best to help him score as many points as possible. »

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Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 3rd

Kimi Räikkönen – 6th

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: « We are reasonably satisfied, but obviously, we would have preferred to do better. Everything went more or less as planned. Romain’s performance, both on a single lap and in long stints, has been excellent, and Kimi is getting a much better handle on his car than yesterday. Starting from third and sixth place, there is no reason why we can’t have a very good race with both drivers. »

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 5th

Felipe Massa – 7th

Pat Fry, Technical Director: A difference of more than one second between the performance of the two types of tires made the choice for the three qualifying sessions quite easy. The Mediums would not have assured us of going to Q2, and using the softs was apparently the best choice, as it also allows us to keep the hardest compound for the race. Seeing the gap around five-tenths of a second compared to pole, we can say that with this level of grip on the track, we can turn the situation around as we did at the start of the season. Tomorrow, we can expect a very hot and demanding race. It will not be easy to gain places, and the tires will be under significant pressure due to track temperatures expected to be over fifty degrees. However, we must be ready to attack at any moment. Let’s hope that starting on the clean side of the track will give us a chance to gain a few positions on a circuit known for its lack of overtaking opportunities.

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Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 6th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 14th

James Key, Technical Director: « It’s great to enter Q3 for the fifth consecutive time since Jean-Eric’s 10th place in Monaco. We have many new parts here that needed validation and we’ve worked very hard overnight. Despite a tricky Friday, we analyzed the data and found that the parts were working as expected, so they stayed on the car. We closely looked at where we most needed to improve. One of the reasons we struggled on the first day is that we need to adapt the car to the new tires. Everyone did a fantastic job finding a new direction for the drivers this morning and they were both happier with the balance of the car today. The car wasn’t at 100% during free practice 3 but we made small adjustments before qualifying and it helped us get closer to our rivals. JEV also improved but Q2 was very tight, and he finished 14th, but we can certainly do well from there and knowing he’s strong in the race we’ll obviously aim for a points finish for him as well. We know it will be a tough race in this heat and we have to wait to see how many laps the tires will last. »

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McLaren

Sergio Pérez – 9th

Jenson Button – 13th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: Clearly, even if you want a position to fight in the race on a circuit like this, the two days of testing have shown us that the soft tires won’t last very long during the race tomorrow – so unless they can clear the traffic, drivers on soft tires will encounter some problems. Checo did a good job – he will be the first on medium tires. We knew that the medium tires would be about one and a half seconds slower [than the soft tires], so Checo qualified in the position we were hoping for. I must also add that the mechanics did a magnificent job to get Checo’s car repaired before qualifying. His accident in the last seconds of free practice 3 could hardly have happened at a worse time, but they threw themselves into the work – in tough, hot, and humid conditions – and finished with just a few minutes to spare.

Indeed, Checo didn’t lose a second on track time because our strategy for both cars was always to go out at the end of the second half of Q1. For Jenson, the thirteenth place wasn’t really what we expected – and his lap in Q2 wasn’t enough to make it to Q3. However, he and Checo are strong and determined drivers, and they will give it their all tomorrow. As usual, the Hungarian Grand Prix is going to be long, stifling, hot, and very difficult – with a race duration of about two hours, and the track’s winding nature, many things can happen tomorrow. So, I expect an exciting race that will undoubtedly end in the most improbable ways – which will be good for the drivers, the media, and the fans.

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Force India

Adrian Sutil – 11th

Paul di Resta – 18th

Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer: Finding the right balance for our two cars proved difficult this weekend and I think we saw the result in our qualifying performance. Adrian managed to get into Q2 and set a time sufficient to finish just outside the top 10. That is what we expected in terms of performance and we hope he can score points tomorrow. The adjustments made to Paul’s car before qualifying helped with the performance on the mediums, but he struggled with the softs. That’s something we need to try to understand tonight because we expected him to be better positioned on the grid. It’s a circuit where overtaking is difficult, but we will do everything to provide Paul with a strategy that allows him to be in the points.

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Sauber

**Nico Hülkenberg** – 12th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 17th

Tom McCullough, Track Engineering Manager: « Unfortunately, Esteban lost Free Practice 3 due to an engine issue, and that costs even more when the gaps are so close. Nico was happy with the car in qualifying, and missing Q3 by just 3 hundredths is always frustrating. Both our drivers still have a lot of new tires for the race tomorrow, and our goal is to make the most out of that. »

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Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 15th

Valtteri Bottas – 16th

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Engineer: « We made progress on the car during the third practice session. We were therefore hoping for a lot from today’s qualifying. We started the afternoon well, with both our cars competitive in Q1. In Q2, however, both our drivers were slower on their second set of softs than on their first run. We’ll have to look into that as we thought we could be closer to the top 10. Despite this, our race pace looks better. So we can still have a good race from our grid position. »

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Caterham

Charles Pic – 19th

Giedo Van der Garde – 20th

Caterham did not publish the statements of the team’s representatives.

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Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 21st

Max Chilton – 22nd

John Booth, Team Principal: « It is fair to say that we are not happy to be in the position we are in, but we didn’t come to this circuit with high expectations. The combination of the downforce requirements here, added to having to manage the intense heat, has always meant that it would disadvantage our current package. However, that doesn’t mean we haven’t worked to improve the car as much as possible to stay competitive. Neither of our drivers had a clean lap in qualifying, but we are always a bit slower than usual. Tomorrow, we will expect even more from the whole team, especially the drivers with the intense heat expected. What I am certain of is that everyone will give 100% before the summer break to achieve the best possible result. »

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