Hungarian GP: Ricciardo angry after yellow flags thwart pole shot

Ricciardo will start third at the Hungaroring, but felt the McLaren's incident cost him a chance to at least reduce his 0.315-second deficit to Nico Rosberg's polesitting Mercedes.

"We got caught by the yellow," said Ricciardo.

"I was pretty angry on that last lap because I was up a bit and it would have put me closer to pole.

"It would have been interested without the yellow. So a little bit disappointed.

"At the same time, I think the session went well. In all conditions we were competitive."

Lewis Hamilton had been on course to beat his provisional pole time until the Alonso spin, which happened just in front of him.

While he had to back off and abandon his lap, by the time team-mate Rosberg reached the scene the McLaren had been cleared and he was able to beat Hamilton's time.

Rosberg said he backed off sufficiently for the stationary yellow at the corner beforehand and there is no indication his pole is being investigated.

"There was no waved yellow. I had a big lift, lost a lot of time as a result, and I was slower than on that previous lap in that yellow segment so I'm sure it'll be OK," he said.

Though Hamilton - ultimately beaten to pole by 0.143s - felt he was set to improve by 0.4s before the yellows, he was not too concerned to lose out.

"A bit unfortunate with Alonso but these things happen," he said. "I'm not too disappointed."

RICCIARDO BELIEVES WIN REALISTIC

Red Bull had been tipped to threaten Mercedes at the Hungaroring but the indications from Friday practice were that it was too far adrift.

A more encouraging Saturday has left Ricciardo optimistic about his race chances from third.

"We're even closer this year then we have been in the past in terms of pure pace," he said.

"We're getting stronger. We were close today, in all conditions we weren't too far off pole.

"Tomorrow should be interesting, the Mercedes have shown good long run pace, we've seen in free practice, but we'll be there.

"We start close enough to the front to make a fight for it."

Max Verstappen starts fourth, having missed out on a final Q3 lap when he backed off to make space in traffic but fractionally mistimed it and ended up taking the chequered flag.

He pushed on until the Alonso yellow anyway and said his first sector time showed he might have been a pole threat too.

"I was straight away half a second faster in the first sector," Verstappen said.

"If you count that off the lap I did previously, I would have been very close to Nico."