Hungarian Grand Prix

Hamilton on pole in Hungary
Tomorrow’s eleventh Grand Prix race comes to us from the Hungaroring, a 4.38km circuit just 18 km northeast of Budapest
Lewis Hamilton was top of the leader board for most of the second qualifying session today, until Timo Glock put in a scorching lap to displace him. Then Felipe Massa topped both of them.

Q3 put Hamilton back on top and, with just seconds to go, Heikki Kovaleinen stormed through to make it one,two on the grid for McLaren with Massa taking 3rd, alongside Robert Kubica’s BMW Sauber. The top ten grid looks like this:

The grid line-up:
1 Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)
2 Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren)
3 Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
4 Robert Kubica (BMW Sauber)
5 Timo Glock (Toyota)
6 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
7 Fernando Alonso (Renault)
8 Mark Webber (Red Bull)
9 Jarno Trulli (Toyota)
10 Nelsinho Piquet (Renault)

Timo Glock starts from his highest grid position in 5th (previous best 8th) and, judging by his performance in qualifying, finally seem to have found the balance that has eluded him so far in the Toyota.

Fernando Alonso turned 27 this week (yes, twice world champion and still only 27!) and celebrated with a 7th on the grid. He and team-mate Nelsinho Piquet have yet to find enough speed from their Renaults to match even their closest rivals.

Because the Hungaroring is rated as one of the most difficult circuits on which to pass, many newspapers are already predicting a third win in a row for Hamilton. At the press conference today he said: ‘I think it puts us in a great position to challenge for the win but I have no doubts that it will be a tough race tomorrow.’

The race starts at 14.00 and (for those of us without satellite) can be seen live on TV3 (in Catalan!)