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Hamilton charges to first pole in two years

Published:Sunday | July 23, 2023 | 12:15 AM
British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes-AMG Petronas reacts after clocked the fastest time during the qualifying session ahead of Sunday’s Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix auto race, at the Hungaroring racetrack in Mogyorod, near Budapest,
AP
British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes-AMG Petronas reacts after clocked the fastest time during the qualifying session ahead of Sunday’s Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix auto race, at the Hungaroring racetrack in Mogyorod, near Budapest, Hungary, yesterday.

BUDAPEST, Hungary (CMC):

MERCEDES DRIVER Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen of Red Bull and Lando Norris of McLaren at the end of an ultra-close qualifying hour yesterday to grab first pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The British race car driver with Grenadian heritage navigated the precarious opening exchanges at the Hungaroring circuit to reach the top 10 shootout, where he bagged his first pole in 34 races since the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix in 2021.

“It’s been a crazy year and half, so I’ve lost my voice from shouting so much in the car,” Hamilton said.

“It’s amazing that feeling, I feel so grateful to be up here, because the team have worked so hard.

“We’ve been pushing so hard over this time, so to finally get a pole, it feels like the first time. I didn’t expect coming here that we would be fighting for pole, so when I went into that last run, I gave it absolutely everything. There was nothing left in it.”

In a session in which Pirelli’s alternative tyre allocation came into play, enforcing hard tyres for the first qualifying run, medium tyres for the second, and soft tyres for the third, Hamilton improved on his second run and demoted Verstappen to second by only 0.003 seconds.

Norris was eight-hundredths-of-a-second further back in third, supported by rookie teammate Oscar Piastri in another strong showing from McLaren.

“[It’s been] massively challenging for everybody in the team,” Hamilton said. “There’s been ups and downs, a big, big rollercoaster ride. “But none of us have lost faith. We’ve all just united together.

“We’re focusing on trying to steer the car in the right direction. We were losing time in Turns 4 and 11, compared to the others, so I just sent it and hoped that I stayed on track.

“But it has been tough, and it’s going to continue to be tough moving on from here, but I think hopefully this shows we are on the right track and hopefully we can do it if we keep pushing.”

Hamilton is now focused on converting his 104th pole into the 104th win of his F1 career – his last win also achieved at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit two years ago.

“I just have to see if I can sleep,” he said, turning his attention to the race today.

“I think we will study as hard as we can. We will bring it… bring our A-game as a team.

“It’s going to be difficult to fight these two guys [Verstappen and Norris]. Lando has been doing a mega-job, it’s been great to see McLaren up there battling. And Max, he is always up there, always doing his thing.”

As well as ending a drought amid Mercedes’ performance struggles in the ground-effect era, it marked a record ninth pole for Hamilton at this venue.