Lewis Hamilton claimed his first pole position since the Malaysian Grand Prix with an imperious performance at the Hungaroring as Mark Webber failed to make the top 10 and Michael Schumacher slumped to 17th.
Lewis Hamilton continued his good form at the Hungaroring by topping the FP2 timesheet after also being quickest in the morning.
The McLaren driver set his best time in the opening period of afternoon practice as a brief but heavy rain shower in the middle of the one-and-a-half-hour session then made the track too damp to permit further dry tyre running and the times naturally failed to improve.
Just one week after Fernando Alonso’s superb victory at the German Grand Prix, the Ferrari driver will resume his quest to land a third Formula One Drivers’ World Championship title at the Hungaroring, the scene of his first grand prix victory.
The Hungarian Grand Prix has been on the F1 calendar since 1986 and the tight and twisting confines of the track present teams with a challenge similar to that encountered in Monaco – how to maximise high-downforce performance.
Fernando Alonso took his third win of the season with a controlled drive to the chequered flag in a German Grand Prix that saw Sebastian Vettel stripped of second place following an illegal passing move on Jenson Button two laps from the finish.
Fernando Alonso claimed his 22nd career pole position in a rain-disrupted qualifying session for the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
After an uneventful first segment, during which the only excitement was Michael Schumacher’s need to put in a last-gasp flyer to scrape through to Q2 at the expense of Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, the second session was enlivened by torrential rain.
Pastor Maldonado topped the timesheets in the second free practice session at Hockenheim, largely by virtue of taking to the track at the right time in a session disrupted by rain.
Maldonado’s lap of 1:27.476 was scored on intermediate tyres in the second half of the session as early rain gave way to an emerging dry line. As the times tumbled, the Venezuelan recorded his lap just a few minutes before another rain shower hit the circuit.
McLaren’s Jenson Button made best use of changeable conditions to finish FP1 half a second ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Button set his time of 1:16.595 in the first half-hour of running, with the session subsequently interrupted by intermittent showers. The track never got sufficiently wet to impede running and, while most drivers improved their times subsequently, Button’s earlier time was never challenged.
