Lewis Hamilton, Formula 1's all-time leader in both poles and wins, had not earned one of either since the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. That finally changed in qualifying for tomorrow's Hungarian Grand Prix. In fitting fashion, Hamilton beat 2021 title rival Max Verstappen by just 3/1000ths of a second.
For Hamilton, this pole is the first meaningful result he has earned at Mercedes since the ill-fated, incorrectly-officiated 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that robbed him of his record-setting eighth driver's championship. A curious team-wide commitment to a design built around eliminating sidepods on a season and a half of Mercedes F1 cars meant that Hamilton has rarely had a competitive car since, but that tide started to turn when the team returned to a traditional design earlier this year. Hamilton now has four podiums and a real shot at getting back to second in the constructor's standings, but the real goal for the rest of 2023 is to collect poles and wins.
While a pole for Hamilton and his Mercedes team certainly does not indicate a certain loss for Red Bull tomorrow, the qualifying outcome does set up the first potential upset win of the entire 2023 season. Thanks in part to a new-for-the-weekend trial rule that requires all drivers to run the same tire compound as one another in a given round of qualifying, the entire top ten was covered by just over half a second in Q3. What was once a historically large gap for Red Bull has become a gap within reach for most of the grid.
That means Verstappen will have to play both offense and defense tomorrow, all with one of the biggest records in Formula 1 on the line. Another win would mark the 12th straight for Red Bull, breaking a tie with McLaren's MP4-4 from the 1988 season for the most all-time. Although all three enjoyed long eras alone at the front of the grid in the past 20 years, 12 consecutive wins is a feat never accomplished by Mercedes, Ferrari, or previous iterations of Red Bull in their previous turns at season-breaking dominance.
