Lewis loses pole after Alonso spin

LEWIS HAMILTON missed out on pole for today’s Hungarian Grand Prix as he bids to chase down a fourth Formula One title.

His Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg snatched pole position with his final throw of the dice in a dramatic rain-delayed, stop-start qualifying session.

Defending champion Hamilton, who is just one point adrift of Rosberg, looked like setting the fastest time.

However, he had to abort his final timed run after McLaren’s Fernando Alonso went into a spin in front of him.

It allowed Rosberg to set a final lap of 1min, 19.965secs around the Hungaroring, beating Hamilton by 0.143 seconds.

Britain’s Hamilton (right) said: “I don’t know how much Nico was up but I felt good on the lap and it was a bit unfortunate with Fernando, but these things happen.

“I am not too disappointed. There is a long race ahead of us.”

Hamilton has clawed back 42 points in the championship thanks to winning four of the last five grands prix.

And he knows that a victory here, which would be a record-breaking fifth at the venue, will see him lead the championship for the first time this season.

Rosberg, who has never finished on the podium in 10 visits to the Hungaroring, is desperate to get his title bid back on track.

The pole was the 26th of Rosberg’s career and his fourth of the season.

It was also the Mercedes team’s 46th pole in the last 49 races, with the German outfit starting all but one race this year from the front.

There were doubts whether Rosberg would be allowed to keep pole after replays showed him also encountering yellow flags.

But the 31-year-old driver said he had lifted off the throttle in that section of the track.

Rosberg said: “It was a really challenging qualifying with the conditions changing the whole time.

“It was amazing that it did fully dry out in the end. I got a really good lap in with that last lap, so I am very happy.” A deluge of rain had earlier contributed to chaotic scenes in the opening phase of qualifying.

Four red flags were issued – one following a further outbreak of rain and three after Marcus Ericsson, Felipe Massa and Rio Haryanto all crashed out.

Indeed Q1, which was scheduled to last only 18 minutes, took nearly an hour to complete.

Daniel Ricciardo (below) was third for Red Bull on a weekend when the former champions hope to challenge Mercedes for the win, with his team-mate Max Verstappen fourth.

Sebastian Vettel, winner in Hungary last year, was the sole Ferrari driver in the top 10, finishing fifth.

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was knocked out in the second phase of qualifying and starts 14th.

McLaren had their best qualifying result since renewing their engine partnership with Honda at the start of last year with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button, who both had their first race wins in Hungary, in seventh and eighth.

Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Williams Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top 10.