Hamilton snatches pole in Hungary

Lewis Hamilton secured his 30th career pole position in Hungary today, snatching pole position from what looked like an unbeatable time posted by Sebastian Vettel on his last lap of the third qualifying session.

Sebastian Vettel set a timed lap of 1:19.426 halfway through the final qualifying session. The fastest lap set in Hungary this year, Vettel looked sure to have captured pole for tomorrows Grand Prix. But a last minute push by Hamilton and his Mercedes saw the Brit cross the line with a 1:19.388 with no time left for Vettel to run another lap. Unaware of his achievement, it was not until the Mercedes team congratulated him over the radio that Hamilton realised he had the pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, who still had fresh soft tyres for both runs in Q3 and therefore looked to have the advantage, would have to settle for second place as the chequered flag fell on qualifying whilst the Lotus of Romain Grosjean will start in third, joined on the second row by Hamilton’s teammate Nico Rosberg.

Ferrari’s struggles with setup and outright pace continued with Fernando Alonso unable to do any better than fifth, whilst teammate Felipe Massa would settle for seventh. Kimi Raikkonen splits the two Ferrari’s in sixth, unable to match the pace of Romain Grosjean three places ahead.

Raikkonen’s competition for the vacant 2014 Red Bull Racing seat Daniel Ricciardo put on another impressive show, placing his Toro Rosso in P8 and a full six places ahead of teammate Jean-Eric Vergne.

McLaren opted to run a different strategy to those ahead of them, putting eighth placed Sergio Perez on the medium Pirelli compound tyre to complete his final timed laps. McLaren will be looking to gain position on-track tomorrow by running a longer first stint during the race than those ahead of Perez.

Struggling with first an electrical problem, and then a KERS failure during Q2, Mark Webber would not set a timed lap in Q3 and will start from tenth place tomorrow. The Red Bull team will look to rectify the failures as soon as possible in order for Mark to seriously compete during the race.

As temperatures continued to rise, Q2 got off to a slow start with all teams and drivers looking to conserve their tyres in the best possible manner. Ultimately it was Kimi Raikkonen who led the pack out, a full minute into the second qualifying session. The soft Pirelli compound was the tyre of choice throughout the session providing the most grip in the high on-track temperatures.

Romain Grosjean continued to demonstrate the speed shown in this mornings’ third free practice session, impressing throughout qualifying to ensure his car was safely into the top ten shootout. Though as the chequered flag fell to end the session, as with other race weekends there were some high-profile names who failed to advance to Q3.

Adrian Sutil’s 100th Grand Prix will start from P11 and though in a considerably stronger position than his teammate, not where Force India was hoping to be this weekend. The Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg lines up in P12. Jenson Button and McLaren continue to struggle, and although the team is making steps to improve the car for the second half of the season, Button reported a struggle with setup and could manage just thirteenth on the grid for tomorrows Grand Prix.

Jean-Eric Vergne lines up in P14 with the Williams duo of Pastor Maldonado and Valtteri Bottas just behind. The Williams pair found themselves a second and a half back on the pace set by Q2 pace setter Sebastian Vettel.

Esteban Gutierrez was the first driver not to make it out of Q1 and will start the Hungarian Grand Prix from P17 with the Force India of Paul di Resta just behind, who has struggled for any kind of pace all weekend thus far. In the final two rows of the grid, Charles Pic edged Giedo van der Garde for P19 and Caterham proved themselves to be comfortably quicker than rival team Marussia this weekend; Marussia teammates Jules Bianchi and Max Chilton occupy the final row of the grid in 21st and 22nd place.

Full qualifying times and results can be found below. The Formula 1 Magyar Nagydij 2013 starts tomorrow, Sunday July 28th at 14:00 local time.