Hamilton on pole position

2008-08-02 15:18

Budapest - World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton qualified fastest on Saturday and will start Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix in pole position.

The English driver spearheaded a McLaren one-two setting a time of 1min 20.899sec, just 0.2 seconds ahead of teammate Finn Heikki Kovalainen.

He will bid to become the first driver to win three races in a row since Michael Schumacher triumphed in the United States, French and German grands prix two years ago.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa was third but teammate and reigning champion Kimi Raikkonen could only finish sixth, over half-a-second adrift of Hamilton.

BMW's Robert Kibica overcame difficult conditions and will start in fourth while Toyota's Timo Glock bagged his best qualifying position of fifth.

Germany's Nick Heidfeld was the biggest casualty of the first qualifying session as the BMW driver could finish only 16th, waving his arm in anger and frustration as he crossed the line.

Heidfeld was joined by usual suspects Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil of Force India with Honda's Rubens Barrichello and Williams racer Kazuki Nakajima also missing out.

Nico Rosberg completed a disappointing afternoon for Williams as he failed to take to the track in the second session. Others going out were the Toro Rosso duo of Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull's David Coulthard and Honda's Jenson Button.

- AFP