Lewis Hamilton has finally beaten champion Max Verstappen again. At least, he has achieved it on a qualifying Saturday, at the Hungarian GP. By just 3 thousandths of a second, the Englishman is at the top of the starting grid again, 34 grand prix later: since the 2021 Saudi Arabian GP.
"It has been a roller coaster all this time, but no one has lost faith, I hope this shows that we are in the right direction," said the Englishman from Mercedes, who brings the pole position count to 104, a record number in history.
The start will spark at the Hungaroring, again with the seven-time champion alongside the two-time Dutch champion, just like in the old days of 2021.
The Spaniards disappointed because of their back positions that left them less options in the race: Fernando Alonso will start eighth on the track where he achieved his first victory in F1 20 years ago, in which his Aston Martin had to perform better through slow corners, and Carlos Sainz did not pass in the top 10 (11th) for the first time this year.
After having dominated the third free practice session with a quarter of a second advantage over the two Red Bulls (250 thousandths over Verstappen and 256 over Pérez), Lewis Hamilton launched his candidacy for pole position on one of his favorite circuits. On the track mousetrap on the outskirts of Budapest, the Englishman had managed to start eight times in the preferred position, the last in 2021.
In fact, you have to go back two seasons, that Saudi Arabian GP, the penultimate race of the course in which he lost the eighth world title to Max Verstappen, to find Hamilton's last pole position, 103, the absolute record in history. Since then, he had 33 grand prix without starting the first.
In the first qualifying round, the surprise was double: the Chinese Zhou led a qualifying session for the first time, while George Russell, with Mercedes, was left out of Q2 with the 18th time. An unexpected elimination –which the Englishman attributed to traffic on the track- that gave rise to one of the images of the day, and of the year: Toto Wolff furiously hitting the table in an angry gesture. Verstappen was second, ahead of Pérez (3rd), Sainz (4th), Hamilton (7th) and Alonso (8th).
But the biggest fiasco came in Q2 when Carlos Sainz was left out of the top 10, for the first time this year. The Spaniard signed 11th place, 2 thousandths from the cut-off time, marked by Fernando Alonso. A serious setback for the Spaniard from Ferrari to have to start so far back on a track where overtaking is never easy.
Norris led the race, ahead of Hamilton and Verstappen, and the two Alfa Romeos (Zhou and Bottas) were among the 10 chosen to fight for pole position.
The battle for the preferred starting position had three protagonists in the first attempt. Norris took the best provisional time, held off Leclerc's Ferrari and Pérez's Red Bull, but gave in to Verstappen, who took first place by lowering the McLaren's time by three tenths, while Hamilton, the last to set a lap, was only one tenth behind the Dutchman.
In the second and last attempt, Hamilton starred in the crush by winning pole position with a lap by just 3 thousandths of a second over Vestappen, who did not improve on his second lap. The Dutchman complained about the problems he had "all weekend to find my balance, I lost the front end, then the back, I would have liked to have more balance." The two-time champion was left without a sixth pole position in a row this year.
