Nico Rosberg grabs sixth pole of the season; Engine fire ends Hamilton’s qualifying hopes
Briton will start at the back of the field after fuel leak ends qualifying hopes. Vettel on front row ahead of Bottas.
Nico Rosberg took pole position during qualifying at the Hungaroring this afternoon, while a fuel leak saw Lewis eliminated in the Q1 phase without setting a time.
- Nico took his sixth pole position of the 2014 Formula One season – his third in a row after Great Britain and Germany
- MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS has now taken 10 pole positions from 11 races so far in 2014
- A fuel leak and subsequent fire for Lewis during his warm-up lap in Q1 prevented him from setting a time
- The team has yet to determine the extent of damage incurred by chassis F1 W05 Hybrid/05 and its component parts
- A full investigation will be conducted into the cause of the problem in parc ferme
Hungaroring, 26 July 2014: Nico Rosberg grabbed his sixth pole position of the season at the Hungaroring as an engine fire ended Lewis Hamilton’s qualifying hopes on his first out lap at the start of the session. Hamilton will start the race from the back of the grid.
Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel will line up alongside Hamilton on the front row, with Williams’ Valtteri Bottas this ahead of Daniel Ricciardo.
Just five minutes in Q1 Hamilt
on, who was nearing the end of his first out lap, contacted his pit wall to inform them that he had a fire on board his W05. He eventually pulled over at the edge of the pit lane entrance where his car was surrounded by marshals who quickly extinguished the blaze. Mercedes later reported that the engine fire had been caused by a fuel leak.
Hamilton will be joined there by Pastor Maldonado. The Venezuelan driver also failed to set a time during the session after his Lotus ground to a halt at turn 13 on his first out lap.
At the end of Q1 Jules Bianchi put in a great lap to demote Kimi Raikkonen to 17th place. Ferrari had been trying to get the Finn through the Q2 without resorting to the soft Pirelli tyres but the Finn’s medium-tyre best lap of 1:26.792 was not good enough to make it through as Bianchi beat him by six hundredths of a second
Also eliminated in the session, in order behind Raikkonen, Kamui Kobayashi, Max Chilton and Marcus Ericsson.
At the top of the Q1 order was Jean-Eric Vergne who set an impressive 1:24.941 on the soft tyre to finish ahead of Rosberg and Vergne’s Toro Rosso team-mate Daniil Kvyat.
Q2 was less incident-packed, with Rosberg easing through to Q3 in P1 ahead of Vettel, Ricciardo and Bottas.
In danger of being eliminated, however, was Nico Hulkenberg, the only remaining Force India following Sergio Perez’s early exit from the session with a hydraulic problem. With Daniil Kvyat in 10th place and three tenths ahead as the final runs began, Hulkenberg looked to be in trouble.
The German delivered a lap of 1:24.647 to dislodge the young Russian but the Force India driver still did not look secure as Kvyat set personal best times through the first two sectors. However the Russian made a mistake in the final sector, losing control under braking into Turn 12 and sliding off circuit.
The spin left him in 11th, ahead of Adrian Sutil, Perez, Esteban Gutierrez, Romain Grosjean and Bianchi.
Just a Q3 was about to begin, light rain began to fall in the pitlane. Teams rushed to get in a banker on slick tyres but the result was that Rosberg went wide at Turn One on his first run as he ran out of grip and moments later Magnussen lost control in the same spot. The Dane went straight on at the corner and slammed into the tyre barriers at high speed. He was unharmed and soon out of the wrecked car but the session had to be red-flagged as the tyre barrier was rebuilt.
When the session re-started Rosberg seized control, setting a benchmark of 1:23.236 ahead of Vettel and Bottas. The gap to the champion was only two tenths, however. Bottas improved with his final run, jumping into second place with a final lap of 1m23.354s, just 0.118s shy of Rosberg’s time.
Vettel, though, went one better, claiming provisional pole with a time 0.035s ahead of Rosberg’s.
There was no hint of celebration, however, as Rosberg was flying on his final lap. He was 0.2s up after the first sector and he continued to find time across the lap, eventually claiming his sixth pole of the year with a lap of 1:22.715, just under half a second clear of Vettel.
With Bottas third, four hundredths ahead of Ricciardo, fifth place went to Fernando Alonso. Felipe Massa was sixth in the second Williams, ahead of Button and Vergne. The final top-10 places went to Hulkenberg and the unfortunate Magnussen.
Nico Rosberg said: “That was a very tough Qualifying session today – especially with the rain at the beginning of Q3. It’s difficult to judge which braking point is best in changing conditions so I was a bit over the limit at times – especially into Turn One. I was lucky there, but in the end I nailed the last lap so I’m quite happy to be starting from pole. On the other side, it’s a real shame for Lewis and the team. I know how much it hurts to have technical failure where there is nothing you can do as a driver. We need to sort out the reliability issues but I know that tonight there will be great team effort to fix his car – just like in Hockenheim where the whole garage pitched in to help rebuild it. It takes away a bit of the excitement when there is no gloves-off battle because that’s what we are here for. But tomorrow is a long race and I’m sure that Lewis can get another good result.”
Lewis Hamilton was done in again by a break-down of the car due to a fuel leak. A disappointed Briton said: “I can’t really believe it today, there was just nothing I could do. There was an issue with the car as I was coming out of the second to last corner and then the engine just cut out. I thought we could get it back to the garage but then I looked in my mirrors and saw the whole rear end was on fire and that was it. Now we need to see what damage has been done to the car tonight and see whether the gearbox or engine needs to be changed. It’s getting to the point where it’s beyond bad luck now – as a team, we need to do better. Tonight, I need to somehow find the way to turn this into a positive fortomorrow, then build on that going into the race. It will be a very difficult afternoon as it’s one of the hardest circuits to overtake on. But these things are sent to try us and how I come out of it is going to be the most important thing.”
Hungarian Grand Prix – Qualifying
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:25.227 1:23.310 1:22.715 20
2 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:25.662 1:23.606 1:23.201 16
3 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:25.690 1:23.776 1:23.354 19
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:25.495 1:23.676 1:23.391 18
5 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:26.087 1:24.249 1:23.909 17
6 Felipe Massa Williams 1:26.592 1:24.030 1:24.223 19
7 Jenson Button McLaren 1:26.612 1:24.502 1:24.294 21
8 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:24.941 1:24.637 1:24.720 19
9 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:26.149 1:24.647 1:24.775 22
10 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:26.578 1:24.585 13
11 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:25.361 1:24.706 14
12 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:26.027 1:25.136 12
13 Sergio Perez Force India 1:25.910 1:25.211 11
14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:25.709 1:25.260 10
15 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:26.136 1:25.337 16
16 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:26.728 1:27.419 14
17 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:26.792 5
18 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:27.139 10
19 Max Chilton Marussia 1:27.819 7
20 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:28.643 10
21 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes No time 2
22 Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault No time 1
eom/FIA press release
