Hamilton beats the heat to take pole in Hungary - MotorSportsTalk

Lewis Hamilton has claimed his fourth pole position of the season during qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix after a fine performance in the dying stages of Q3 saw him edge out Sebastian Vettel by just 0.038 seconds.

The British driver, who has won three times at the Hungaroring before, had shown signs of good pace in Q1 and Q2 but after Vettel took provisional pole with his first effort in the final session, many considered the result to be secured. However, as Nico Rosberg, Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen all failed to beat the defending world champion’s time, Hamilton produced a fine lap to seal his third pole position in a row.

Qualifying began in a rather quiet manner as many of the teams elected to leave their runs until later on in order to save tires. However, Esteban Gutierrez was quick to get out in order to make up for missing FP3 this morning, setting this first time of 1:23.998 which was quickly beaten by Paul di Resta for Force India. Valtteri Bottas soon stormed to the top of the timesheets on the softer tire and the rest of the field soon followed his example when it came to tire choice in order to save the medium tires for the race tomorrow. It wasn’t until the final five minutes of the session that the front-runners finally began to post some competitive times as Fernando Alonso and Romain Grosjean both occupied P1 momentarily. Eventually though, the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton closed out the top two positions with some good laps as pre-qualifying favorites Red Bull struggled to repeat their Friday form. Mark Webber, suffering from an electrical problem, could not improve on P13 and faced a nervous final few moments as Gutierrez and di Resta tried to get out of the drop zone. However, neither driver could improve and they joined both Caterham and Marussia drivers in the dropzone, bringing their qualifying to an early end.

Things went from bad to worse for Webber at the beginning of Q2 when his electrical problem was confirmed to be a KERS failure, giving the Red Bull driver a lack of power for the rest of qualifying. Kimi Raikkonen was the early pace setter for Lotus but Grosjean continued his good form to move ahead of his teammate along with Adrian Sutil. Mercedes once again showed their hand by moving into 1st and 3rd – Hamilton ahead of Rosberg – with Alonso slotting in 4th until Vettel became the first man to dip into the 1:19s to open up a strong lead at the top. Rosberg was quick to respond as Mercedes once again finished the session in P1 and P2, but Webber could only scrape into Q3 on his final lap along with Felipe Massa, Sergio Perez and Daniel Ricciardo who secured his fourth consecutive top-ten start. As a result, Jenson Button and Nico Hulkenberg were bumped out of the top ten and subsequently eliminated alongside Sutil, Vergne, Maldonado and Bottas.

The final session saw all ten drivers quickly take to the track in order to give themselves the best possible chance of claiming pole position, but McLaren looked to play it safe with Perez by putting him on medium tires. Once again, Mercedes led the way with Hamilton and Rosberg on scrubbed soft tires ahead of Lotus and Ferrari, but Vettel soon responded to put himself on provisional pole by eight-tenths of a second. In the other Red Bull, Webber was forced to get out of his car due to the KERS failure, leaving him 10th on the grid. Raikkonen, Rosberg and Grosjean all failed to top Vettel’s time on their final laps allowing Lewis Hamilton to produce a fine lap to move 0.038 seconds ahead of the defending world champion at the top, and as Vettel failed to improve the British driver claimed his thirtieth career pole and fourth of the season.

The battle for the win tomorrow looks set to be between Red Bull, Mercedes and Lotus with the three teams occupying the top three spots on the grid. However, with Ferrari also lurking in the shadows, the drivers will have to make sure that they do not let the heat (upwards of 100ºF) get to them in the race tomorrow as Hamilton chases a fourth win in Hungary.

Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

Read more about SuperMotocross