F1 Hungary GP: Hamilton secures 104th pole with sensational lap

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has secured his 104th pole position after he snatched the top spot from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by three-thousandths of a second.

Ahead of qualifying, a key story across the weekend is the alternative tyre allocation where the 20 drivers were given 11 sets across the weekend.

For qualifying, all the drivers were required to use hard tyres for Q1, medium compounds for Q2 and soft tyres will be used for Q3.

Q1

The pit exit light went green to signal the start of qualifying as the pack slowly peeled out onto the circuit, with the unusual sight of hard tyres attached to their cars.

As the pack blasted around the Hungarian Hungaroring, it took three minutes before the last of the drivers finally left their garages. The Williams duo of Alexander Albon and Logan Sargeant were the last to venture out onto the circuit.

At the same time, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas jumped to the top of the timing boards with a lap time of 1:18.818 as Verstappen and Mercedes’ George Russell filtered into second and third, two-tenths behind the Finnish driver’s pace.

Haas’ Kevin Magnussen was the first driver to have a lap time deleted as the Danish driver ran wide on the exit of turn five. However, he was not the only driver to be the victim of track limits. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, Albon, Sargeant and Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Gunayu had their lap times deleted.

With eight minutes left on the board, Verstappen put in the fastest lap and swapped places with Bottas as the Dutchman went one-tenth quicker.

It was trouble for Albon as the London-born driver as he reported that he ‘lost brakes.’ Following this news over the team radio, Albon was ordered to ‘stop short’ when he returned to the pit lane. Three minutes remained on the clock and Albon was back out on track.

As Albon peeled out onto the circuit, so did the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Russell. The Brackley-based team sent their drivers out for one, last flying lap to improve their fortunes. Hamilton jumped out of the Elimination zone while Russell was less fortunate and could only qualify 18th at best.

Replays showed that, on Russell’s out-lap, many drivers overtook the Briton as he crawled towards the final corner which ruined his preparation for his final run.

On his return to F1, Alpha Tauri’s Daniel Ricciardo out-qualified his teammate and squeezed his way into Q2 as Yuki Tsunoda was knocked out.

Eliminated:

20. Logan Sargeant, Williams

19. Kevin Magnussen, Haas

18. George Russell, Mercedes

17. Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri

16. Alexander Albon, Williams

Q2

The pit exit light quickly returned to green to signal the start of Q2, as per the new trail the drivers went onto the circuit equipped with the medium compound tyre. Perez was the first driver to head out, followed by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll.

Of the first banker laps, by the trio who went out first, Perez topped the timing board as Stroll and Ocon filtered in behind. However, Stroll’s lap time was soon deleted.

After five minutes, the rest of the field was out on track and pumped in their own banker laps. Verstappen quickly jumped to the top of the table with a 1:17.2 but this was soon deleted as the Dutchman ran slightly wide on the exit of turn five.

This allowed McLaren of Lando Norris to top the timing boards with a 1:17.328. This was two-tenths quicker than his teammate, Piastri, who sat in second as Perez rounded out the top three.

Five minutes were left on the clock and the majority of the field returned to the pit lane. The only driver out on track was Verstappen who attempted to make amends for his earlier track limits violation.

With a clear run, Verstappen went purple in the first sector but failed to put in a personal best in the second sector and could only manage second-fastest.

As the field peeled back out into the pit lane, Verstappen returned to the pit lane to join Norris. Only Hamilton was able to slip in between Norris and Verstappen as he went second-fastest.

On the other hand, Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz found himself out in 11th and out of qualifying.

Eliminated:

15. Pierre Gasly, Alpine

14. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin

13. Daniel Ricciardo, Alpha Tauri

12. Esteban Ocon, Alpine

11. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari

Q3

In a similar fashion to Q2, Perez was the first driver to spin up his soft Pirelli tyres on the Hungarian asphalt. The Mexican was quickly followed by the remainder of the field. Naturally, the #11 Red Bull was the first to set a lap time on the board, the benchmark: a 1:17.142.

When the last nine drivers put in their banker laps, Perez’s time was soon beaten by the likes of Norris and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso before Verstappen went onto provisional pole position with a 1:6.612.

On his first timed lap, Hamilton failed to overthrow his 2021 title rival from the top spot as he put in a lap time which was one-tenth slower than Verstappen. Despite this, Hamilton slipped into place between the Dutch driver and Norris who sat in third place.

In the last four minutes of qualifying, the field slowly peeled out onto the circuit with a fresh set of soft tyres in a bid to topple the Dutchman from his 28th career pole position. No one was able to topple the reigning world champion from the top spot apart from one man: Lewis Hamilton.

On a hotter lap, Hamilton managed to steal away pole position away from Verstappen as the seven-time world champion put in a 1:16.609 lap which was three-thousandths of a second faster than his former rival.

Top 10:

10. Nico Hulkenberg, Haas

9. Sergio Perez, Red Bull

8. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin

7. Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo

6. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

5. Zhou Gunayu, Alfa Romeo

4. Oscar Piastri, McLaren

3. Lando Norris, McLaren

2. Max Verstappen, Red Bull

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

That’s all for the article; F1 Hungary GP: Hamilton secures 104th pole with sensational lap!

Read more Formula 1 here:

• F1 Hungary GP: Hamilton fastest in FP3 ahead of Red Bull duo
• F1 Hungary GP: Leclerc fastest in behaved FP2 ahead of Norris and Gasly
• F1 Hungarian GP: Russell fastest in FP1 as Perez crashes early on
• Nyck de Vries breaks silence on Instagram following Alpha Tauri departure
• Three teams rumoured to have breached 2022 Cost Cap regulations
• Nicholas Latifi to study MBA after F1 exit
• F1 Hungarian Grand Prix: Ricciardo returns, Red Bull record and fight for second

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