Vettel holds off Hamilton for pole

Sebastian Vettel had to work hard to take yet another pole position.

In Hungary, the Red Bull driver was closely challenged by Lewis Hamilton and eventually managed to edge him out by one tenth of a second. They were the only drivers to dip under the 1’20 barrier.

Jenson Button qualified in third place and will share the second row of the grid with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. For once, the Brazilian out-qualified his teammate Alonso. The Spaniard had looked really strong in Q1 and Q2 but couldn’t do any better than fifth. He will line up on the third row alongside Mark Webber.

Rosberg was 7th ahead of Sutil, Schumacher and Pérez.

How the session unfolded :

Q1

Daniel Ricciardo kicked off the action, leaving the pits as soon as the track was opened. He was followed by his teammate Tonio Liuzzi, in very windy conditions.

As they embarked on their flying laps, more drivers left the pitlane including both Red Bulls and McLarens. Vettel immediately jumped at the top of the timesheets, with his teammate Webber slotting behind him.

Button split the Red Bull pair while Hamilton took over at the front. Vettel managed to improve to close within a tenth of the McLaren driver. Alonso was yet to post a time and moved up to third place but almost instantly lost a place to Button.

Massa and Alonso pushed harder before pitting. While the Brazilian was unable to improve, his teammate moved up at the front, a few hundredths ahead of Hamilton.

The frontrunners were pretty content with their times and sat out the rest of the session, letting the rest of the field battling it for the remaining Q2 positions. Buemi and Maldonado appeared to be the most likely candidates to miss the cut alongside the new teams’ drivers.

It was indeed a fight between those two and the Swiss didn’t make it through. He was eliminated with Kovalainen, Trulli, Glock, Liuzzi, Ricciardo and d’Ambrosio. As a reminder, Buemi will drop five places on the grid – a penalty he was handed for causing a collision with Nick Heidfeld in Germany.

Q2

The first minutes went by with no one making a move. Force India eventually blinked first and sent Paul di Resta out. Vettel followed and the session got properly underway.

Strategies were split with some drivers, including Vettel and Button, on the super soft tyres and others on the soft compound.

The world champion set the benchmark but was edged out by his teammate Webber. Hamilton slotted in third place, a few thousandths shy off Vettel’s time. Button then took over at the front but was in turn beaten by Alonso.

With four minutes left, Sergio Pérez was the only man on track. His fellow rookie Pastor Maldonado was in the pits and yet to set a time.

As Pérez moved up in 8th place, more drivers joined him on track, hoping to make it through to Q3. Maldonado was not one of them, thus settling for 17th on the starting grid. Jaime Alguersuari also sat out the final part of the session, accepting he would not make it in the top ten. He qualified 16th.

Mercedes got both its cars in Q3 while Sutil and Pérez grabbed the remaining two spots.

Di Resta, Petrov, Kobayashi, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Alguersuari and Maldonado were eliminated.

Q3

For the first time this year it looked like Red Bull’s rivals would be able to break the Austrian team’s run of pole positions.

Alonso set the ball rolling. Hamilton followed him out. Sutil, Button, Massa, Vettel and Webber didn’t wait too long before leaving the pits too.

It was extremely close between Alonso, Hamilton and Vettel. The McLaren driver won the first round ahead of the world champion and the Spaniard. Vettel came within one tenth of Hamilton while Alonso was three tenths down on the Briton.

Button was fourth with Massa fifth and Webber sixth. The Mercedes drivers, Sutil and Pérez opted for a single run strategy.

With two minutes left, all ten drivers were back out in track for a final run.

Vettel and Hamilton fought it tooth and nail… and the German came out of it on top! He beat his McLaren rival by one tenth of a second. Button was third, Massa fourth and Alonso fifth.