Hamilton on ninth Pole in Hungary: ‘Hard to explain just how special it is'

After being the quickest on soft tyres in FP3, Lewis Hamilton once again finished in P1 in qualifying and claimed his ninth Pole Position at the Hungaroring. The British driver has beaten Max Verstappen by only three thousands of a second, and will start from the best position on the grid.

"I forgot what it feels like to sit in this spot," Hamilton began after qualifying. "I don't think I breathed the whole lap. I think I held my breath and I was just so out of breath at the end. But it's an extraordinary feeling after you've been here for such a long time. And you have had the success before, even though it's 104, it feels like the first. It's hard to explain just how special it feels."

Hamilton continued with explaining how his car felt in today’s condition at the Hungaroring. "Then once we got to Q2, it was looking quite decent all of a sudden. And I was second. And then once we got to Q3, we were only a tenth off max and I knew I had more time I could find in the car. The majority of the time was being lost in Turn 2 and 4, particularly 4 and 11. I don't know if this guy's lifting through there. But the car was just not quite up to it on the previous laps. But at the last one, I just had to send it and hope that I stayed on track. I think I got closer to them, at least in those areas. But our last sector was particularly strong."

Tomorrow certainly won’t be easy for the seven-time world champion, as Red Bull have won every race so far this season. "Well, normally it's not a bad race car. We tend to have decent race pace. Max's race pace yesterday was, I think, quite extraordinary. I think they were quite a bit quicker than us. But, yeah, if there's a way to hold position, then maybe there's a fighting chance for us. But just even being up there in the top three is new. We're going to have a great race, for sure," Hamilton shared his thoughts on tomorrow’s race.