Hamilton beats Verstappen and Norris to Hungarian GP pole in qualifying thriller

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton charged to his first pole position since the closing stages of the 2021 season with a scintillating qualifying performance at the Hungarian Grand Prix, getting the better of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and McLaren’s Lando Norris at the end of an ultra-close qualifying hour.

In a session that saw Pirelli’s ‘Alternative Tyre Allocation’ in play, which enforced hard tyres for Q1, medium tyres for Q2 and soft tyres for Q3, Hamilton navigated the precarious opening exchanges to reach the top 10 shootout, where he bagged his first pole in 34 events (Saudi Arabia 2021).

Hamilton’s improvement on his second run demoted Verstappen – who could not find more time – to second by just 0.003s, with Norris eight hundredths further back in third, supported by rookie team mate Oscar Piastri in another strong showing from McLaren.

Zhou Guanyu was another star of qualifying as he took a high-flying fifth, followed by the lead Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and team mate Valtteri Bottas, who underlined Alfa Romeo’s strong pace around the twisty Hungaroring circuit.

Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin had to settle for eighth position, while Sergio Perez finally managed to end his rough patch of qualifying performances, albeit taking only ninth in his Red Bull, with Nico Hulkenberg the final Q3 runner.

Carlos Sainz could not join Ferrari team mate Leclerc in Q3 as he narrowly missed the cut in 11th, followed by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and F1 returnee Daniel Ricciardo, who took a respectable 13th for AlphaTauri – last in the constructors’ standings – during his first competitive session since jumping back into a race seat.

Also unable to follow their team mate into the pole shootout was Lance Stroll, who wound up 14th in the second of the Aston Martins, having provisionally been last in the Q2 phase before Alpine's Pierre Gasly lost a lap time and dropped down to 15th.

An action-packed Q1 session saw a dramatic elimination for George Russell, who lost tyre temperature ahead of his final attempt when he was forced to slow down to find track position and stay clear of drivers approaching on hot laps – leaving him a lowly 18th for race day.

Williams driver Alex Albon just missed the Q2 cut in 16th, with Yuki Tsunoda outpaced by new team mate Ricciardo en route to 17th, as Kevin Magnussen in the second Haas machine and rookie Logan Sargeant in the other FW45 – who made a mistake on his last lap – brought up the rear.

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