Hungarian drama as Alonso takes pole

Renault’s Fernando Alonso is on pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) is second on the grid, with his teammate Mark Webber third.

Sat, 25 Jul, 2009 - 15:44

Renault’s Fernando Alonso is on pole for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) is second on the grid, with his teammate Mark Webber third.

Felipe Massa was airlifted to a local hospital following a crash in qualifying that knocked the Brazilian unconscious.

Massa ran over a piece of debris on track towards the close of the middle 15-minute session that had been deposited earlier by Rubens Barrichello’s Brawn GP.

He is believed to be conscious now, and talking.

To add to the drama, the timing screens went black towards the end of the top-10 shootout, throwing everybody into confusion as not even the drivers knew who had taken pole.

After several minutes, it finally came through Fernando Alonso for Renault had taken pole, followed by the Red Bull duo of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, with Lewis Hamilton fourth for McLaren.

It was the double world champion’s first pole since the Italian Grand Prix in 2007, and the 18th of his career.

Explaining the chaos at the end, Alonso said: “We were chatting amongst ourselves in parc ferme trying to find out what happened.

“It was a fantastic effort from the team. We put in some new parts at the Nurburging (German Grand Prix), and we’ve showed we have made a step forward.”

Behind world champion Hamilton will be Williams' Nico Rosberg, the second McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, with championship leader Jenson Button down in a disastrous eighth.

The heat of Budapest was meant to aid Button’s cause after the cool of Britain and Germany had led to Red Bull one-twos in the last two races.

But not even the sunshine could come to Button’s aid, and his 21-point lead in the title race threatens to be eroded further at the Hungaroring.

Behind Button are Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima, with Massa 10th as he naturally took no part in the closing 10 minutes, however, he will be in a position to race tomorrow.

In the 15-minute Q2, the biggest loser was Rubens Barrichello, with the Brazilian failing to make it into the top 10 for the first time this season due to the part that broke off his car.

The 37-year-old will start a miserable 13th, with that failure potentially wrecking his championship chances, which could now prompt Brawn into putting all their eggs into Button’s basket.

Either side of Barrichello are the Toyotas of Jarno Trulli in 12th and Timo Glock 14th, while Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi will start 11th and Renault’s Nelson Piquet 15th.

After being given a reprieve by Renault, as the race in Germany was expected to be the Brazilian’s last, Piquet’s F1 career is poised to draw to a close.

Given equal equipment for this race with team-mate Alonso, Piquet finished half-a-second adrift of the double world champion in Q2.

Although rookie Jaime Alguersuari became the youngest to take part in a Formula One qualifying session, there was no fairytale for the 19-year-old.

Alguersuari had run faultlessly through three practice sessions, at least proving he was anything but ’a danger’ as suggested by triple world champion Niki Lauda.

In qualifying, however, Alguersuari was undermined by an electrical fault that forced him to pull his Toro Rosso off track in the final sector.

Come the conclusion of the 20-minute period, Alguersuari sat at the bottom of the timesheets, in many respects where he was expected to finish even if his car had not let him down.

However, he finished just 0.4secs shy of Robert Kubica as there was no respite for the wretched form of the BMW Saubers, with team-mate Nick Heidfeld also ditched in Q1 as he will start 16th.

Sandwiched in between in 17th and 18th are Force India’s Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil, the latter only just managing to set a time.

Sutil’s car spent the majority of the session in the garage as his mechanics attempted manfully to make repairs after a crash in final practice in which he buried the nose of his car in a tyre wall.

Grid positions after Qualifying *:

1 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault 1min 21.569secs,

2 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1:21.607,

3 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:21.741,

4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:21.839,

5 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 1:21.890,

6 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 1:22.095,

7 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:22.468,

8 Jenson Button (Gbr) Brawn GP 1:22.511,

9 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams 1:22.835,

10 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari No time,

11 Sebastien Buemi (Swi) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:21.002,