Hamilton and Antonelli grid penalties after chaotic Hungarian GP qualifying

Both Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes championship contender Kimi Antonelli will start the Hungarian Grand Prix three places lower than their qualifying positions after separate penalties from the stewards.

Hamilton, 41, initially qualified second but will drop to fifth for Sunday's race start after the stewards ruled he impeded Oscar Piastri on the McLaren driver's final Q3 lap. After completing his flying Q3 lap, Hamilton was driving "at a significantly reduced speed on the racing line" when Piastri was starting a push lap, according to the stewards.

The Ferrari driver said in the post-qualifying news conference that he was told Piastri was on a flying lap "literally when he was at the apex behind me, so I had no idea he was coming." Hamilton told the stewards that due to where his car was positioned at Hungaroring, Piastri wasn't visible in his mirrors. Because the Briton was the first out, he was under the impression that the other drivers in Q3 had already completed their laps and that teammate Charles Leclerc "was the car that was behind me when I left the pit lane."

"Crazy, because it had been clean and obviously it wasn't intentional," Hamilton said.

Piastri told Sky Sports after qualifying that "it was just Lewis not looking in his mirrors" and that "the yellow flag wasn't my problem." Between Hamilton's impeding and a yellow flag triggered by Max Verstappen, the Australian couldn't "get a lap in either way," despite the car being quick. Because Hamilton impeded him, Piastri had "to take avoiding action by running wide and being obliged to abort the lap."

The weekend also had Mercedes in the spotlight. Antonelli initially qualified fourth but found himself under investigation for an alleged yellow flag infringement related to his flying lap when Verstappen spun and triggered yellow flags. The stewards ultimately handed the Italian driver a three-place grid drop to seventh and a penalty point, his fourth in a 12-month stretch.

According to the stewards' decision document, Antonelli said he "lifted the throttle earlier than his previous push lap" when he saw the yellow flag and light panel. While that was confirmed by telemetry, it was a short period of reduced speed. Per the stewards, Antonelli's speed when passing Verstappen's incident site "was slightly higher than that on the previous push lap."

The mini sector time was only 0.03 second slower than his best time for that mini sector, and though he had lifted 16 metres earlier and was 14 km/h slower entering the yellow flag sector, he was 3 km/h faster when passing the incident site. The standard penalty for this infraction is typically a five-place grid drop, but the stewards took into account that Antonelli did slow, though "an insufficient and unsustained," and had "limited time and distance to react," hence the reduced three-place penalty.

Mercedes also had a difficult day with George Russell, who qualified seventh but had to come to a stop at the end of Q3 rather than return to the parc fermé area because of a water leak, team boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports. Mercedes later confirmed it would replace Russell's engine, his fourth of the season and within allocation, before the race.

Meanwhile, pole position went to Lando Norris, who edged Hamilton by just 0.012 seconds — his first pole of the season and the first non-Mercedes pole of 2026 — with McLaren having brought a notable aerodynamic upgrade to Hungary. "It doesn't feel that different," Norris said. "But it certainly seems to be going a little bit quicker, and that's always a good thing."