Lewis Hamilton has labelled his pole position lap at the Hungarian Grand Prix as his highlight of this year's Formula 1 campaign.
Hamilton endured his second consecutive winless season with his most recent F1 victory coming at the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Mercedes has slipped back in the pecking order since the start of 2022 when new technical regulations came into play, while rivals Red Bull have dominated the field.
Hamilton's pole position in Budapest earlier this year marks the only time in the last two seasons that the seven-time World Champion has topped a qualifying session.
With team-mate George Russell failing to progress past Q1, Hamilton ousted Max Verstappen by 0.003s to secure pole position at the Hungaroring.
“I think obviously Budapest was the highlight, a track that I love and somehow dethrone the Red Bull for a single moment gave us a lot of hope,” Hamilton told media including RacingNews365.com.
“And that knowing that if we just keep pushing we may get there.”
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Hamilton hails Mercedes resilience
While this year marked another difficult campaign for Mercedes who finished runner-up in the Constructors' Championship, Hamilton hailed the team's spirit.
“There are ups and downs within all seasons,” he said.
“From the moment we started driving the car at Silverstone and realising that we're probably not [going to] be fighting for a championship to then just refocusing and resetting your goals and then working towards catching up.
“I think it's just really pleasing to see that we never gave up, no one in the team gave up.
“Everyone stayed positive, just how everyone showed up was super encouraging for me.
“We were always learning more about just appreciating the moment, appreciating each and every single individual in the team.
“Those results we're getting, when we finally got a podium, we appreciated it perhaps more than ever before.”
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