Lewis Hamilton will start on pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix despite describing Mercedes’ pace on Friday as “shocking”.
The Briton snatched the quickest lap in the closing seconds and seemed rather surprised to have done so.
The gap to Sebastian Vettel in second was a miniscule four hundredths of a second, but the German will be confident of better race pace than the Mercedes who have struggled with tyre management.
The top three was rounded off by Lotus’s Romain Grosjean who’s looked strong all weekend. The Frenchman outpaced his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen who starts sixth, behind Fernando Alonso and Nico Rosberg.
The second Ferrari of Felipe Massa was seventh, whilst Daniel Ricciardo continues to prove why he might just be the choice for Red Bull next season after competing in his fourth consecutive Q3 whilst team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne had to settle for 14th.
Sergio Perez recovered from his FP3 crash, but almost failed to take part in the first session after his McLaren mechanics rushed to repair his MP4-28. Jenson Button was 12th.
Mark Webber chose not to complete a timed lap in Q3 after his RB9 suffered KERS failure.
The shock of Q1 was that of Paul di Resta failing to make the cut, whilst the Caterham’s easily outpaced the Marussia cars.
Qualifying – 2013 Hungarian Grand Prix
| # | Driver | Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 02 | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 1:20.646 | 1:19.992 | 1:19.426 |
| 10 | M. Webber | Red Bull | 1:21.264 | 1:20.503 | |
| 13 | J. Button | McLaren | 1:21.131 | 1:20.777 | |
| 09 | S. Perez | McLaren | 1:21.612 | 1:20.545 | 1:22.398 |
| 03 | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 1:20.447 | 1:20.101 | 1:19.595 |
| 04 | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 1:20.350 | 1:19.778 | 1:19.720 |
| 05 | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 1:20.652 | 1:20.183 | 1:19.791 |
| 06 | K. Räikkönen | Lotus | 1:20.867 | 1:20.243 | 1:19.851 |
| 01 | L. Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:20.363 | 1:19.862 | 1:19.388 |
| 12 | N. Hulkenberg | Sauber | 1:21.028 | 1:20.580 | |
| 07 | F. Massa | Ferrari | 1:21.004 | 1:20.460 | 1:19.929 |
| 18 | P. di Resta | Force India | 1:22.043 | ||
| 11 | A. Sutil | Force India | 1:21.471 | 1:20.569 | |
| 16 | V. Bottas | Williams | 1:21.135 | 1:21.219 | |
| 14 | J-E. Vergne | Toro Rosso | 1:21.345 | 1:21.029 | |
| 08 | D. Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | 1:21.181 | 1:20.527 | 1:20.641 |
| 15 | P. Maldonado | Williams | 1:20.816 | 1:21.133 | |
| 17 | E. Gutierrez | Sauber | 1:21.724 | ||
| 21 | J. Bianchi | Marussia | 1:23.787 | ||
| 22 | M. Chilton | Marussia | 1:23.997 | ||
| 20 | G. van der Garde | Caterham | 1:23.333 | ||
| 19 | C. Pic | Caterham | 1:23.007 |
