Sebastian Vettel secured a super forty-eighth career pole position of his Formula 1 career after dominating qualifying at the Hungaroring on Saturday.
And it will be a Scuderia Ferrari front-row lock-out for the Hungarian Grand Prix after Kimi Raikkonen grabbed second late in the day, albeit 0.168 seconds down on his team-mate.
Vettel’s best lap of 1:16.276s was a new track record at the Hungaroring, while his second best would have also been comfortably good enough for pole, being as it was just 0.002 seconds slower than his fastest time.
Valtteri Bottas got the better of his Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team team-mate Lewis Hamilton to start third on the grid, with the Finn ending up 0.254 seconds off the pole time but 0.163 seconds ahead of the Briton.
After showing promise on Friday, Red Bull Racing were forced to settle for positions five and six on the grid, and once again it was Max Verstappen who got the better of Daniel Ricciardo, this time by just 0.021 seconds.
Nico Hülkenberg was in great form for the Renault Sport Formula 1 Team and set the seventh fastest time, but unfortunately for the German, he will drop five places on the grid following a gearbox change, moving him down to twelfth.
Therefore sharing row four will be the McLaren Honda Formula 1 Team, with Fernando Alonso ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne, with both drivers showing the MCL32 chassis is a very good one around a track that is not power dependant, which negates the lack of competitiveness of the Honda power unit.
Carlos Sainz Jr was the final driver to make it through to the top ten shootout, with the Spaniard making only one attempt in the closing stages, but he could not better tenth on the grid, although the Scuderia Toro Rosso driver moves up to ninth thanks to Hülkenberg’s penalty.
Jolyon Palmer missed out on the top ten by just 0.104 seconds, but despite now having the same package as team-mate Hülkenberg, ended up almost eight-tenths of a second down on the German. He will start two spots ahead of him thanks to his penalty, but the gap will be alarming for the under pressure Briton.
Esteban Ocon also missed out as the Sahara Force India F1 Team struggled for pace, with his team-mate Sergio Perez down in fourteenth, while Daniil Kvyat will start in-between them in thirteenth for Toro Rosso, the Russian ending up just over two-tenths of a second down on Sainz.
Romain Grosjean was the final driver to make it through to the second segment of qualifying, but the Haas F1 Team driver was the slowest in the session, missing out on advancing to the top ten shootout by just over four-tenths of a second.
Kvyat had a wild spin at turn four in the closing stages of Q1, ruining the lap of some drivers behind him due to the subsequent yellow flags, including Perez, but despite this, the Russian made it through to the next stage of qualifying, as did Perez.
Eliminated in the first session was the second Haas of Kevin Magnussen, who found himself on the wrong side of the cut off point despite setting an identical time to Perez, but as the Mexican set the time first, he managed to scrape through.
Lance Stroll will start down in seventeenth after a scruffy session for the Williams Martini Racing driver, while Pascal Wehrlein was the leading Sauber F1 Team driver in eighteenth.
Paul di Resta’s first experience of the Williams FW40 since replacing the under the weather Felipe Massa saw the Scot complete eleven laps, and he got within eight-tenths of a second behind team-mate Stroll, but ahead of the second Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.
Hungaroring Qualifying Result
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