Nico Rosberg will start the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole position in a drama filled session which lasted almost two hours thanks to heavy rain and numerous red flags.
The Mercedes driver will line-up alongside team-mate Lewis Hamilton who had to settle for second after Fernando Alonso span ahead of him on his final flying lap, forcing him to back off.
The Briton finished 0.143 seconds adrift but had held provisional pole before Rosberg crossed the line on his final flyer to snatch the lead – though Hamilton opened with the fastest first sector before backing off.
Daniel Ricciardo will start third for Red Bull ahead of team-mate Max Verstappen with the pair between three and five tenths off Mercedes.
Following them, Sebastian Vettel will start fifth ahead of Carlos Sainz and the McLaren duo of Alonso and Jenson Button – marking the first time both cars have made Q3 since Brazil 2014.
Nico Hulkenberg and Valtteri Bottas complete the top ten.
Q2 saw Kimi Raikkonen fail to make it through as drivers switched from the intermediate tyre to the slicks, something the Ferrari driver seemed to time wrong. The Finnish driver starts P14 behind Hass’ Romain Grosjean, Daniil Kvyat and Sergio Perez.
The opening session, Q1, last an hour as at first it was delayed for 20 minutes when a sudden downpour turned the circuit into a river.
With conditions improving, the session was given the green light before the rain returned, resulting in a red flag, leading to a further delay as race control waited for the conditions to improve once again.
When they did, a second red flag came out almost immediately as Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson ended up in the tyre wall having lost it.
Another restart came and went as a third red flag arrived for Felipe Massa. The Williams driver lost the rear on the wet kerbs and hit the barrier, heavily damaging the front of his car.
That left five minutes on the clock for some final flying laps on the intermediate tyre for most. But a fourth red flag arrives minutes later, prematurely ending the session when Rio Haryanto ended up in the same tyre wall as Ericsson.
