Vettel secures pole against all odds

F1 Grand Prix, GP Hungary, Hungaroring

Sebastian Vettel took pole position for the Hungarian GP contrary to expectations. The faviourite for pole will start from 2nd place tomorrow, ahead of Jenson Button and both Ferraris. The stiff competition displayed around the track however bodes well for the race and remainder of the season.

As the light for Q1 goes green, Daniel Ricciardo is the first to take the track, along with his HRT team mate Liuzzi. Both are immediately running on the super soft tyres.

5 minutes into the session Sebastian Vettel starts his first lap, choosing for the prime tyre. He goes fastest with a 1:22.387, ahead of Button and Webber. Lewis Hamilton goes faster still by a 0.7s margin over Vettel. Lewis's car has had a brake material change after FP3 as he struggled to get the car to stop during that session. The team did the exact same thing for Lewis a week ago at the German GP.

Vettel's second attempt is quicker and gets him into a 0.1s margin off of Hamilton's time. Times behind the top three then continued to tumble and 5 minutes from the end the first 7 positions in Q1 seem to be fixed.

In the final three minutes, everybody ahead of Rosberg who is provisionally 8th is going out on track again. Nearly everybody went for the softer tyre then, and the last one to secure a position into Q2 was Paster Maldonado, pipping Buemi for 17th at the very end of the session.

That leaves Buemi out in 18th, although he will drop another 5 places for tomorrow's grid due to a penalty he received at the German GP. Heikki Kovalainen set the 19th fastest time, in the very end topping his teammate Jarno Trulli thanks to choosing the option tyre for his very last attempt. The latter though is extremely happy with the new power steering and set a solid time, running only the prime tyres. Timo Glock is 21st, Liuzzi 22nd, Ricciardo 23rd and D'Ambrosio 24th.

While Di Resta is the first to run a lap on Q2, Vettel is out early as well, setting a 1:21.095. Hamilton is unable to improve on that, as is Rosberg. Mark Webber though can and is the first man of the weekend to dive below 1:21. Jenson Button goes even quicker, followed by Alonso who jumps to the top of the timesheet on the softer option tyre, even with 3 laps of fuel left in the car.

The middle part of Q2 is surprisingly silent. It's Sergio Pérez who halts engine silence as he gets onto the track with 4 minutes left on the track. Barrichello also takes the track and manages only P11 on his first attempt. Heidfeld stays in 13th while Sutil sets a 1:22.000 to move up to P8.

Knocked out in Q2 are Di Resta, Petrov, Kobayashi, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Alguersuari and Maldonado.

In Q3 Alonso is first away after one minute of the session ticked away. Hamilton follows and will be the man to watch is this is now his very first run on the option tyres. That means he still has 2 sets of brand new options left, while others only have one.

Halfway through the session, only McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull have allowed their drivers to set a time. Lewis Hamilton was fastest, marginally ahead of Sebastian Vettel. Alonso is third, Button 4th, Massa 5th and Webber only 6th.

With 1 minute to go, all 10 remaining cars are out on track. Alonso is the first to start his flying lap but couldn't improve on his second attempt, despite a fastest first sector. Vettel improved enough to get into pole position while Hamilton failed to improve after a difficult middle sector. Massa's improvement on his final attempt moved him up to 4th, outqualifying Alonso for the first time this season.