'Incredible' Verstappen celebrates after clinching historic pole

Max Verstappen has taken part in 92 Grand Prix races and come out victorious in seven of them, including last weekend in Germany.

But astonishingly, since making his Formula 1 debut at the 2015 Australian GP in Melbourne, the 21-year-old Dutch racer has never succeeded in claiming pole position. That is, until now.

"It’s incredible!" he said after finally succeeding in one of his biggest ambitions. "This one was still missing."

QUALIFYING: Verstappen finally claims his maiden F1 pole position

Verstappen did it in style, his best lap of the afternoon clocking in at 1:14.572s which was a new track record for the Hungaroring.

He also made history in another way, by becoming the 100th different driver to win pole in the history of the F1 world championship.

It came on the same date that Heikki Kovalainen succeeded in being the 100th different driver to win a Grand Prix - which he did 11 years ago at the very same venue.

And it's also where his father Jos had claimed his own first podium for Benetton 25 years ago in 1994.

"I'm very happy about today," Verstappen beamed afterwards. "The car felt good all weekend and it was incredible!

"Of course you know it's always going to be hard in qualifying, but we we managed to do it. Big thank you to the team.

However he was determined not to get carried away before the Grand Prix itself on Sunday.

"There’s still a race to do and at the end of the day that’s the most important," he pointed out. "But for me today was an important on, very nice and also a great for the team."

Sunday's qualifying session also marked the first pole position for a Honda-powered car since the 2006 Australian Grand Prix.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.