BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Lewis Hamilton has had more pole positions than any driver in Formula One history, but the Briton’s 104th in Hungary on Saturday still felt like a first.
In many ways it was — his first in 33 races, first since 2021 and first since his Mercedes team’s era of domination was ended by Red Bull after a run of eight constructors’ titles in a row.
It was also the first time any driver had ever taken nine poles at the same circuit — a record he had previously shared with past greats Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher on eight apiece.
“It feels like my first pole, believe it or not,” Hamilton said after beating Red Bull’s runaway championship leader Max Verstappen by just 0.003 of a second.
“It feels strange to say that when there’s 104 but I don’t remember the last time I had a pole, it feels so long ago.”
On Friday, when he was only 16th fastest, Hamilton said his car felt like the worst, but a day later and he was suddenly fastest — in both final practice and qualifying after overnight tweaks.
It could easily have been a different story, with the Briton in 17th place and a minute to go in the first phase of qualifying, but he hauled himself clear and then the afternoon just got better and better.
The pole lap, he said, had felt like he was hardly breathing.
A gust of wind towards the end cost him some time, he reckoned, but he had just enough in the bag to start the celebrations.
Hamilton stood on his car, saluted the crowd and then ran to hug his team mates.
“What I’ve been searching for with this car is confidence, confidence to be able to really send it,” he explained.
“I know how to do the fastest lap pretty much everywhere, but there are ones where it’s more natural and it’s easier to connect for me corner by corner, sector by sector, and this is one of those tracks.
“That last run…I just sent it. I was like ‘Nothing to lose, just give it everything you’ve got’. I threw it into the high-speed corners. It was a great, great lap.”
Former Mercedes team mate and 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg agreed:
“He gave it everything he had. I witnessed these special moments and these days he used to have. Today was one of those,” said the German.
“That lap there is like perfection, it’s art. Only Lewis Hamilton can do that on such days. No one could have even gone a hundredth quicker.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
