LEWIS HAMILTON took a sensational pole position for the Hungarian GP – beating Max Verstappen by 0.003 seconds.
Verstappen, who has dominated this season to open up a 99 point lead in the championship, will start in second place.
Lewis Hamilton is on pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix
Max Verstappen and Red Bull were pipped to pole position by Lewis Hamilton
It is the 104th pole position of the Brit’s career – and an emotional one – as there are now signs that Mercedes are back in the mix after a terrible 18 months.
Hamilton, who has won this race eight times before, scored his first pole since Saudi Arabia 2021.
Lando Norris extended McLaren’s upward trajectory by qualifying in third place and his teammate, Oscar Piastri will line up in fourth.
Daniel Ricciardo had a successful return to F1 after qualifying in 13th place – comfortably ahead of his teammate, Yuki Tsunoda.
Ricciardo has been handed his way back by Red Bull after being dumped by McLaren at the end of last year.
The Aussie replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri – Red Bull’s sister team – and scored their best qualifying result since the Monaco GP in May.
Meanwhile, George Russell suffered a miserable qualifying – leaving Merc boss Toto Wolff furious.
The Austrian slammed his fist into the desk as he watched Russell eliminated at Q1 – a result that will see him start in 18th on the grid.
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Russell was waiting in line to start his final flying lap but as the clock counted down, he was leapfrogged in the queue of cars by THREE other drivers.
Not only had he lost time and track position but the extra delay to create a gap to the cars ahead also punished his tyres as the temperature dropped off.
As a result, his first sector was slow and he was unable to improve meaning he was dumped out of qualifying at the first hurdle.
