The defending champion and four-time world champion Lewis Hamilton won the 33rd Formula One Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying in Hungaroring, a motorsport race track in Mogyoród, Hungary, in heavy rain on Saturday.

This qualifying victory was the 5th for the British driver this year and the 77th of his carrier. Hamilton's Mercedes teammate, Finnish Valtteri Bottas, will start on the Sunday race beside him, and in the third starting place will be Kimi Raikkonen, the Finnish driver of Ferrari.

Sebastian Vettel, who was on top again in final practice with a new lap record earlier in the day, was fourth with Ferrari. He is currently second in the driver’s standing, 17 points behind Hamilton. The first 18 minutes of training took place on wet asphalt, but the track became drier, so each competitor was able to run the measured circle with tyres set for dry track.

At the beginning of the second stage of the qualifying race, heavy rain began, so the whole field completed the laps with rain tyres. This section’s big loser was the winner of the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix, the Australian Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull), who can only start from the 12th place on Sunday’s race.

In the third stage of the pole position, Mercedes’ pilots, ailing in the previous weekend, found themselves in the rain, and Hamilton gained his sixth timing triumph after a big fight. The Spanish Carlos Sainz (Renault) placed fifth in the qualifying round, and Toro Rosso's excellent results have also been achieved by Frenchman Pierre Gasly in the sixth and Brendon Hartley of New Zealand in the eighth position.

(With agency input)