Lewis Hamilton continued his total control of the Hungaroring weekend by taking a dominant pole position during Saturday’s all-important qualifying session.
The British driver has been the man to beat all weekend long, and confirmed his pace during free practice, in which he topped each of the three seasons, was genuine by beating Mercedes AMG PETRONAS team-mate Nico Rosberg by 0.585s.
Hamilton had led the way in each of the three sections of the qualifying session, with Rosberg his closest challenger throughout, but the German driver did not have an answer to the reigning World Champion’s pace.
Sebastian Vettel was the best of the rest in third for Scuderia Ferrari, 0.729s back of Hamilton, with the German driver being joined on the second row by his former team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, who put in a good performance in his Infiniti Red Bull Racing machine.
Kimi Raikkonen was a full second adrift of Hamilton in fifth in the second Ferrari, with Valtteri Bottas the leading Williams Martini Racing driver in sixth.
The second of the Red Bull drivers Daniil Kvyat ended the session seventh, ahead of Felipe Massa in the second Williams, while the top ten was completed by Max Verstappen in ninth for Scuderia Toro Rosso, and Romain Grosjean in tenth for the Lotus F1 Team.
Neither Sahara Force India driver made it through to the top-ten shootout, with Nico Hulkenberg being eliminated in the closing stages of Q2 when Grosjean sneaked ahead of his lap time by just 0.025s.
Carlos Sainz Jr was twelfth for Toro Rosso ahead of the second Force India of Sergio Perez, while the second Lotus of Pastor Maldonado was fourteenth.
Unfortunately after the promise from practice, the McLaren-Honda team endured a tough qualifying session, with Fernando Alonso causing a red flag period during Q2 when he stopped on track on the entry to the pit lane. The Spaniard pushed his car back into the pits with the help of the mechanics, but his session was over.
His team-mate Jenson Button had earlier been eliminated in the first part of qualifying, along with the two Sauber F1 Team drivers, Marcus Ericsson ahead of Felipe Nasr, and the two Manor F1 Team drivers, Roberto Merhi ahead of Will Stevens.
Hungaroring Qualifying Result
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