Hamilton on pole for European GP

F1 Grand Prix, GP Europe, Valencia Street Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has confirmed the win at the Hungarian GP by securing pole position for the European GP at Valencia. He will be joined on the front line by his teammate Heikki Kovalainen. Rubens Barrichello is 3rd.

Felipe Massa's replacement, Luca Badoer is the first to take the track. He will aim to set a time without traffic as getting through to Q2 will already be hard enough for him. All through the free practice sessions, he proved to be slowest.

Less than a minute later, Sutil sets a 1:41.232, a full 1.5 seconds quicker than the Ferrari that kicked off the session.

10 minutes into the session, Rosbeg set the fastest time in 1:39.416, followed by Fisichella, Kovalainen and Vettel. Alonso and Hamilton at that time have just come on track to set their first flying laps.

Hamilton crosses the line first but is quickly topped by Kovalainen and seconds later also by Barrichello. The Briton however makes another attempt on his harder tyres and is back on top in 1:38.649. Alonso meawhile ends up in 8th position after completing a lap, also on the harder compound.

While all others are back on track to secure their places in Q2, Nakajima is out with technical problems. He parked in a run-off area along the track.

After a hectic series of quick laps with apparently only the McLarens watching from the pitboxes. Eliminated in Q1 are now Fisichella, Nakajima, a very unhappy Trulli, Alguarsuari and a terribly struggling Badoer.

The best cars this weekend seem to be the Brawn BGP001, back from the dead, and the McLaren MP4-24, basically a dead car that was revived in Hungary.

5 minutes before the end of Q2, Hamilton is on top, 0.049s ahead of Barrichello, followedby Kovalainen and Rosberg. Alonos, who xpected to get into Q3 easily is still 11th with his teammate Grosjean doing a good job, only 0.2s slower than his teammate.

With the clock on 0s, Barrichello takes the top spot while Alonso manages to get into Q3 by setting the 8th fastest time. Out are Heidfeld, Sutil, Glock, Rosjean and Buemi.

All drivers are out on the option tyres during this session. Hamilton immediately sets a blistering lap, faster than Raikkonen. Alonso is 4th on his first attempt, probably again on a low fuel load ahead of his home fans.

In the final round of attempts, Kovalainen puts himself in second place, even though he is not using the shorter wheelbase version of the MP4-24 like Hamilton is. Barrichello is 3rd, Vettel 4th.