Lewis Hamilton Swipes Pole From Max Verstappen At Hungary

Three thousandths of a second was the gap between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen for the pole in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The pole-sitter? For the first time since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, it was the seven-time champion instead of the two-time champion.

Verstappen set his fastest lap early on in Q3, whereas Hamilton stole the show with his pole lap being the final fast lap of the day.

This marks the 104th pole in Hamilton’s career, extending his record for most poles. His last pole at that 2021 Saudi Arabia race was also his most recent race win.

The FIA experimented this week with a slightly different qualifying format. Each session had a single tire compound assigned to it; Q1 could only use hard tires, Q2 was limited to mediums, and only Q3 could use soft tires.

This allowed teams to have two less tire sets allocated to them this weekend. This reduced tire supplier Pirelli’s production and shipping carbon footprint by 40 total sets of tires over the course of the weekend.

Q3

There were no incidents or problems in this qualifying round.

3. Lando Norris

4. Oscar Piastri

5. Zhou Guanyu

6. Charles Leclerc

7. Valtteri Bottas

8. Fernando Alonso

9. Sergio Perez

10. Nico Hulkenburg

Q2

There were no incidents in this round. The gap between 10th (Alonso) and 11th was only two-thousandths of a second.

11. Carlos Sainz

12. Esteban Ocon

13. Daniel Ricciardo

14. Lance Stroll

15. Pierre Gasly

Q1

There were no incidents in this round.

16. Alex Albon

17. Yuki Tsunoda

18. George Russell

19. Kevin Magnussen

20. Logan Sargeant

The Hungarian Grand Prix will take place on Sunday, July 23, at 9:00 a.m. ET. ESPN will provide coverage of the race.