Hamilton takes his third pole in a row

Lewis Hamilton scorched to his third pole position in a row for Mercedes in searing track temperatures at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Saturday.

The 2008 world champion, a three times winner in Hungary with McLaren, lapped the Hungaroring circuit with a best time of one minute 19.388 seconds to deny Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel the top slot.

Triple champion Vettel, who leads Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in the standings by 34 points after nine of 19 races, could manage only 1:19.426 with the track temperature hitting 50 degrees earlier in the session.

Frenchman Romain Grosjean qualified third for Lotus with Hamilton’s German team mate Nico Rosberg fourth. Alonso will start fifth.

Earlier, Race stewards upheld Romain Grosjean’s third place on the Hungarian Grand Prix starting grid after deciding that accidental damage had caused his Lotus to fail a post-qualifying stress test.

Technical delegate Jo Bauer had referred Lotus to the stewards after the front floor of the Frenchman’s car was found to be in breach of the technical regulations because its front floor flexed more than permitted when a load was applied at a given point.

The stewards, one of them former Formula One racer and Le Mans winner Allan McNish, decided to take no further action after finding that the car had suffered a heavy impact in the second phase of qualifying when it ‘bottomed’ at turn 11.

“This is deemed to be a case of accidental damage, not a case of non-compliance,” they ruled in a statement.

A sanction would have lifted Ferrari’s title contender Fernando Alonso, who is second overall and 34 points behind Vettel, from fifth to fourth.

Reuters