2026 Hungarian Grand Prix - Saturday

Allan McNish, Racing Director: "Overall, it was a challenging qualifying session for everyone with the wind and changing track conditions, but we have positives to take away. Reaching another small milestone on our journey, with consecutive top ten qualifying results for the team following Gabriel in Spa and now Nico here in Budapest, is something we can be pleased with.

Nico has had a run of weekends where things haven't quite fallen his way, so it was great to see him put everything together and deliver a very strong lap today. On Gabriel's side, it was a more difficult session, and he was on the back foot for much of qualifying, but starting P10 and P14 gives us opportunities with both cars tomorrow. Budapest can be an unpredictable race, and we'll be looking to make the most of what we have."

Nico Hulkenberg (Car 27):
FP3: 10^th / 1:19.160 (24 laps)
Q1: 1:18.796 (6 laps)
Q2: 1:18.639 (6 laps)
Q3: 10^th / 1:18.686 (6 laps)

"I'm pleased to be back in Q3 after a clean qualifying. I think we maximised everything we had today. That's satisfying, even if the gap to the cars ahead was a bit bigger than we'd hoped.

"It's been very close all weekend and the windy conditions made it difficult to find consistency, especially through the middle sector. Still, we executed well when it counted and starting from P10 gives us a solid platform for tomorrow. Our long-run pace looked encouraging on Friday, so hopefully we can challenge the cars around us and fight for points."

Gabriel Bortoleto (Car 5):
FP3: 11^th / 1:19.338 (22 laps)
Q1: 1:19.069 (6 laps)
Q2: 14^th / 1:19.105 (5 laps)

"It was a disappointing qualifying from my side. I didn't put everything together and made a few mistakes, so I didn't maximize the package we had today. We've been in the top ten throughout the weekend, so I think there was definitely more potential. Starting from P14 makes tomorrow more challenging, but we'll do our best to move forward and see what we can achieve.”