Spectacular Leclerc takes surprise Hungarian Grand Prix pole

Leclerc has won eight races for Ferrari

Hungarian Grand Prix

Venue: Hungaroring Dates: 1-3 August Race start: 14:00 BST on Sunday

Coverage: Live commentary of practice and qualifying on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 2 with race on BBC Radio 5 Live; live text updates on BBC Sport website and app

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.

Leclerc, nowhere near the McLaren's pace until the final part of qualifying, pipped Piastri by just 0.026 seconds.

Norris, 16 points adrift in the championship, was 0.015secs behind his team-mate.

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.

Leclerc's team-mate Lewis Hamilton failed to progress beyond the second knock-out session and will start 12th.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, struggling all weekend, was eighth, behind Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto.

Told he was on pole position by his engineer Bryan Bozzi, Leclerc was incredulous. "What?" he replied. "Mamma mia."

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.

"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.

"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."

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.

"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."

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."

What happened to Hamilton?

While Leclerc put in his outstanding performance, Hamilton had another struggle in qualifying and he was downcast afterwards, even if he was just 0.015secs shy of making it into the top 10.

"I'm just useless," he said. "I drove terribly."

Aston Martin locked out the back row of the grid in Belgium just a week ago, the car's high drag handicapping it on the long, high-speed sections at Spa-Francorchamps.

The tight, twisty nature of the Hungaroring played much more to its strengths, and the team have also been boosted by upgrades to the car in recent races.

Both drivers were just over 0.1secs off pole, by far their best performance of the season.

Alonso said: "Since P1, we felt competitive and a very different layout from Spa seven days ago. We were last row of the grid and now we are fifth and sixth.

"So a huge change and we need to understand why and we need to learn what is benefiting the car here, and we need to take these lessons into the next grands prix."

Verstappen said: "We tried a lot as a team and unfortunately nothing really helped our balance.

"It's really difficult to explain how we suddenly just had a lot of difficulties with the car. No grip in the front and rear, difficult to balance it out. It's a bit of a mystery at the moment, just the whole weekend off pace."