Norris takes Hungary pole in McLaren front row lockout

BUDAPEST: Lando Norris grabbed pole position ahead of his team-mate Oscar Piastri for the Hungarian Grand Prx on Saturday as McLaren locked out the front row of the grid for the first time since 2012.

Red Bull´s three-time champion Max Verstappen had to settle for third and the second row in the tense wet-dry qualifying

The 24-year-old Briton, who is 84 points behind Verstappen in this year´s title race, clocked a best lap in one minute and 15.227 seconds to outpace the Australian by 0.022 seconds.

Verstappen was three-hundredths of a second adrift in third ahead of Ferrari´s Carlos Sainz, who leaves the team at the end of the year, and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes, who will replace him.

Charles Leclerc, in the second Ferrari was sixth ahead of two-time champion Fernando Alonso and his Aston Martin team-mate Lance Stroll and the RBs of Daniel Ricciardo and Yuki Tsunoda, who had survived a high-speed crash earlier in Q3.

It was Norris´s second pole in four races and the third of his burgeoning career as he gains front-running experience in his bid to challenge Verstappen who, on Sunday bids to complete a hat-trick of Hungarian wins.

“I´m very happy with that and it wasn´t easy at all in difficult conditions so ending up on top is the best for us all and a great result for the team,” said Norris.

“We have come into this weekend confident we can do a good job so to be on pole is sweet.” “It´s the first 1-2 for McLaren for a long time and an amazing result for us,” said Piastri. “I had a tricky day yesterday so for me it is nice to bounce back.”

Verstappen said: “I tried. We have been behind the whole weekend and I tried to make it as close as possible, but it wasn´t enough. I would have liked a bit more grip...”

After Friday´s sweltering conditions for practice, qualifying began in much cooler weather with temperatures and light rain falling.

The McLaren pair were first out on soft slick tyres along with Kevin Magnussen in his Haas.

George Russell was also struggling before the session was red-flagged when Sergio Perez smacked the wall at Turn Eight, having lost control and made a sideways slide into the barriers in the second Red Bull.

For the under-pressure Mexican driver, it was another Q1 setback in a sequence of bad qualifying outings and came just seconds after Russell had saved his car sliding off at the same place as the rain intensified.

After a 12-minute break, the action resumed with Perez hanging on in ninth from his earlier efforts, before he suffered his fourth Q1 exit in six outings as he embarked on two racing weekends that many observers believe offer him a last chance to save his seat at Red Bull.