Qualification – Lewis Hamilton, a step above

Lewis Hamilton has placed himself in an ideal position to emerge victorious in his third consecutive Grand Prix as he will start from pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver holds a 0.4-second lead over the rest of the field after just his first timed lap. Even though he managed to improve and set a time of 1’20”899 on his second fast lap, his previous time would have also secured him his 10th career pole position. This shows that he dominated this qualifying session because all nine other drivers in Q3 also improved.

McLaren will be omnipresent on the front row as Heikki Kovalainen will be alongside the Briton. The former Renault driver achieved his performance at the very end of the session after being stuck in 9th position.

Felipe Massa saves Ferrari’s honor with a third position as Kimi Räikkönen could not do better than sixth place. The underperformances are piling up for the reigning world champion.

Robert Kubica’s BMW-Sauber rounds off this second row, but his teammate Nick Heidfeld suffered another setback. His qualifying was disastrous, recording a 16th fastest time. His first fast lap earned him a 15th place. On the second flying lap, he got caught in traffic and did not improve his performance. He even made a gesture of frustration towards Sébastien Bourdais who was just in front of him.

Timo Glock’s Toyota dazzled brightly this session with its competitiveness. The German ended up fifth, which marks his best performance in qualifying. Four places behind, we find his teammate, Jarno Trulli.

Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet are seventh and tenth for Renault, respectively. The Red Bulls of Mark Webber and David Coulthard are eighth and thirteenth.

Scuderia Toro Rosso was not able to replicate its morning performance in practice and had to settle for 11th and 14th places, with Sebastian Vettel ahead of Bourdais. The young German was knocked out of the top ten in the last seconds of Q2.

Williams is in big trouble. A hydraulic problem prevented Nico Rosberg from getting out of the pits for the second part of qualifying. He is therefore 15th, two places ahead of his teammate Kazuki Nakajima.

Rubens Barrichello is the other big loser of Q1 as he will only be 18th on the grid. But his teammate Jenson Button managed an excellent second fast lap in Q2 to secure 12th place. The Force India cars are at the back of the pack.

Qualification Results – Hungarian GP: