Lewis Hamilton was simply unstoppable as Mercedes was in a league of their own during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Briton smashed the lap record around the Hungaroring on three occasions as he and teammate Valtteri Bottas were the only drivers in the 1m13’s and by a comfortable margin too.
Q1
A high threat of rain sees most drivers head out on track immediately, with Hamilton fractionally faster than Bottas and the two Racing Point’s behind.
Leclerc showed Ferrari’s improved pace in fifth ahead of the two Red Bulls.
As the track improves significantly in the closing minutes, Perez and Stroll capitalise on the increased grip to go fastest ahead of Hamilton.
Williams was again strong in qualifying trim with both drivers making Q2 for the first time since Monza 2018, indeed George Russell lapped at the same pace as the Red Bulls in P9.
Instead, it was Daniil Kvyat in the AlphaTauri who joined the two Haas’ and two Alfa Romeo’s in the bottom five.
Kevin Magnussen was able to finish ahead of the Russian in 16th with Romain Grosjean 18th, leaving Antonio Giovinazzi and Kimi Raikkonen at the back of the grid.
Q2
With the soft tyre showing high degradation in practice, Mercedes, Racing Point and Renault opt to use the medium tyre.
And Lewis Hamilton used it to turn up the wick, setting a new lap record with a 1m14.2s to be two-tenths clear of Bottas.
Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen go third and fourth on the soft tyre ahead of the two McLaren’s also on the fastest compound.
Racing Point though left themselves exposed in seventh and eighth, with the likes of Leclerc, Alex Albon and the two Renaults behind them.
But only the Monegasque would improve to make the top 10, as Albon was the big casualty in P13 for Red Bull.
Leclerc’s lap would knock out Daniel Ricciardo in P11 with Russell claiming a very impressive 12th in the Williams.
Esteban Ocon was 14th in the second Renault and Latifi would round out the top 15.
Q3
The fight for pole was only between two men as Hamilton produced a simply astonishing 1m13.6s to smash the lap record he set in Q2 by another six-tenths of a second.
That gave the world champion a three-tenth lead over Bottas and a full second over the rest of the field with Lance Stroll third for Racing Point.
Credit to Bottas, he would go faster than Hamilton’s initial benchmark with his final lap, but the Briton couldn’t be stopped as he found another two tenths to post a 1m13.447s to finish a tenth clear and clinch his 91st F1 pole.
Stroll would consolidate third with Sergio Perez taking fourth after having his first lap time deleted for breaching track limits.
Ferrari enjoyed their best Saturday so far with Vettel 0.043s ahead of Leclerc in fifth and sixth.
The frustration at Red Bull must be huge, however, as Max Verstappen was only seventh on the track he claimed his first pole at 12 months ago.
Lando Norris led McLaren teammate Carlos Sainz in eighth and ninth and Pierre Gasly completing the top 10.
Full results from qualifying can be seen below:
CLASSIFICATION: END OF Q3 ⏱️
A 90th career pole for @LewisHamilton as @RacingPointF1 lock out the second row ?#HungarianGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/Ei12EbLElH
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 18, 2020