Mercedes driver George Russell notched the first pole of his F1 career at the Hungaroring outside of Budapest, Hungary on Saturday. Russell beat the two F1-75's of Ferrari with Carlos Sainz just 0.044 seconds behind the young Britain and teammate Charles Leclerc 0.190 seconds behind Russell.

"I'm over the moon and absolutely buzzing," said Russell. "Yesterday was disastrous for us and probably the worst Friday of the season. The team was working so hard last night and we were able to make a big step forward."

The pole position was the first for the Silver Arrows this season.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was on pace to possibly knock his teammate off the top podium spot but suffered a DRS failure on his crucial run in Q3.

"For Lewis, it was so tough - his DRS failed just at the crucial moment, otherwise he would have been fighting up there with George for pole position, no doubt." said Mercedes Team Principal, Toto Wolff.

Sainz was quickest in Friday's first free practice session and Leclerc was quickest in the second.

McLaren's Lando Norris, who is having an outstanding weekend in Budapest, qualified fourth followed by the two Alpine's of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso. Norris's teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, qualified ninth.

"A well-executed qualifying performance for us here at the Hungaroring with two cars in the top 10. Lando put in a great lap at the end of Q3 to give us a spot on the second row. It was good to see that we could carry forward into qualifying the pace we saw on Friday," said Andreas Seidl, McLaren Team Principal.

Points leader and 2021 World Champion Max Verstappen qualified 10th after suffering mechanical problems in Q3. Verstappen was quickest in Q2. In a surprise for the Red Bull team, Verstappen's teammate, Sergio Perez, did not make it out of Q2.

"It was a disappointing qualification. Firstly losing Checo in Q2 after encountering some traffic and then unfortunately Max suffering technical issues," said Christian Horner, Red Bull Team Principal. "We felt Max had a chance at a pole, he seemed a lot happier than he was yesterday with the balance of the car, however a lock up on the first run of Q3 put him on the back foot and then a power related issue on the 2nd run prevented him from posting a representative lap time."

Alfa Romeo's Valteri Bottas finished P8.

Williams Racing's Nicholas Latifi took advantage of a quickly drying track to run a surprise quickest time in a rain plagued FP3 session earlier on Saturday. It was the first quickest free practice time of the Canadian driver's career.

FP3 was red flagged near the end of the session when Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel hit the barriers at Turn 10 with nine minutes remaining. Vettel was third quickest when the incident occurred. Earlier in the week the four time World Champion announced he was retiring at the end of the 2022 season.

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QUALIFYING
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Pos	Driver		Team		Laps		Gap

1	Russell		Mercedes	1:17.377	126.656 mph
2	Sainz		Ferrari		1:17.421	0.044
3	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:17.567	0.190
4	Norris		McLaren		1:17.769	0.392
5	Ocon		Alpine		1:18.018	0.641
6	Alonso		Alpine		1:18.078	0.701
7	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:18.142	0.765
8	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:18.157	0.780
9	Ricciardo	McLaren		1:18.379	1.002
10	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:18.823	1.446
11	Perez		Red Bull	1:18.516	
12	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:18.573	
13	Magnussen	Haas		1:18.825	
14	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:19.137	
15	Schumacher	Haas		1:19.202	
16	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:19.240	
17	Albon		Williams	1:19.256	
18	Vettel		Aston Martin	1:19.273	
19	Gasly		AlphaTauri	1:19.527	
20	Latifi		Williams	1:19.570	


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FP3      
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Pos	Driver		Team		Laps		Gap

1	Latifi		Williams	1:41.480	96.574 mph
2	Leclerc		Ferrari		1:42.141	0.661
3	Albon		Williams	1:42.381	0.901
4	Verstappen	Red Bull	1:43.205	1.725
5	Russell		Mercedes	1:43.434	1.954
6	Alonso		Alpine		1:43.570	2.090
7	Sainz		Ferrari		1:43.589	2.109
8	Norris		McLaren		1:43.743	2.263
9	Vettel		Aston Martin	1:44.178	2.698
10	Magnussen	Haas		1:44.655	3.175
11	Hamilton	Mercedes	1:44.832	3.352
12	Schumacher	Haas		1:45.156	3.676
13	Ocon		Alpine		1:45.570	4.090
14	Ricciardo	McLaren		1:45.624	4.144
15	Stroll		Aston Martin	1:45.638	4.158
16	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	1:45.691	4.211
17	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	1:45.850	4.370
18	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	1:45.930	4.450
19	Gasly		AlphaTauri	1:46.091	4.611
20	Perez		Red Bull	1:48.240	6.760