Hamilton on pole for Hungarian GP as McLaren dominate (Roundup)

Aug 2, 2008, 19:24 GMT

British Lewis Hamilton (R) of McLaren Mercedes celebrates with his teammate Finnish Heikki Kovalainen after Lewis clocked the fastest time in the qualifying session at the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring race track near Budapest, Hungary, 02 August 2008. Kovalainen was second fastest and Brazilian Felipe Massa of Ferrari third. The Grand Prix will take place on Sunday, 03 August 2008. EPA/PETER KOLLANYI

Budapest - Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying for Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix ahead of McLaren-Mercedes team-mate Heikki Kovalainen as he seeks his third successive Formula One victory.

The 23-year-old Briton set a best time of 1 minute 20.899 seconds, 0.242 seconds ahead of Finland's Kovalainen to capture his fourth pole position of the season and the 10th of his Formula One career.

Ferrari rivals Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were left trailing in third and sixth positions respectively.

'It's a great day to have me and Heikki one-two - it's about time we did that for the team,' Hamilton said.

On a track in which overtaking is difficult, Hamilton is now well placed to become the first man since Michael Schumacher in 2006 to complete a hat-trick of Formula One victories, after winning the last two races in Britain and Germany.

Fourth was Robert Kubica of Poland in a BMW Sauber, with Timo Glock of Germany in a Toyota fifth ahead of defending world champion Raikkonen, who was 0.617 seconds behind Hamilton.

Renault's Fernando Alonso of Spain claimed seventh place ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber of Australia with Toyota's Jarno Trulli of Italy and Renault's Nelson Piquet Jnr completing the top 10.

BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld missed the cut after the first of the three qualifying stints after he was blocked by traffic on his final flying lap.

The German, lying fifth in the standings on 41 points, was impeded by Toro Rosso driver Sebastein Bourdais to finish initially 16th.

Race commissioners later imposed a five-place grid penalty on French driver Bourdais who will now start 19th, while Heidfeld moved up a place to 15th.

'I am totally disappointed. On my last lap I had four cars in the way. Most at least tried to room for me but Bourdais was completely blocking the way,' Heidfeld said.

Hamilton, who leads the drivers' championship with 58 points, will boost his chances of winning the drivers' championships if he can claim a third successive Grand Prix victory in Sunday's race at the 4.381-kilometre Hungaroring circuit.

He won at the circuit in his debut season last year but it was an acrimonious affair for the team with the Briton locking horns with former team-mate Alonso, who impeded the Briton in a pit-lane incident and was stripped of his pole position as a result.

'There was a lot of activity here last year, all of it unpleasant, and it's a bit different this year,' said team boss Ron Dennis. 'We haven't had team orders, and we won't have them here.'

Hamilton who was fastest in the second practice on Friday and was again quickest in Saturday morning's last practice session, never looked in trouble in qualifying and will be confident of extending his overall lead.

'The team had done a good job in improving the car even from the last race,' he said

Hamilton opted for the harder tyres in steamy conditions with temperatures around 31 degrees Celsius, with the hot weather expected to continue Sunday.

'We made the right choice (of tyres) in the end,' he said.

'We had planned to use the soft tyre for the third part of qualifying but it was the safer option to use the hard.

'The pace of the car is great and I've still got a little bit of time in the bag.'

Kovalainen said: 'The car has been feeling strong in the last few races. We have been improving the package more and it was just a matter of nailing it in qualifying...It's a great effort from everybody.'

Massa said he was 'not 100 per cent happy with my laps' after being caught in traffic but remained optimistic.

'We are pretty strong. We didn't seem to be strong until this morning but looking at the lap times on Q1 and Q2 (the first two qualifying sessions) I think we are there,' he said.

'We are pushing pretty hard and I am sure we are going to push hard from this race and the rest of the season.'

Massa lies second on 54 points in the drivers' standings, followed by Raikkonen on 51 and Kubica on 48.