Reigning double world champion Alonso pipped Hamilton in the dying seconds, setting a time of one minute 19.674 seconds for the 4.384 km Hungaroring circuit.

But for whatever reason, Alonso was held after changing onto fresh tyres for one last flying lap, leaving Hamilton queueing directly behind him and unable to set one final quick time of his own. Team boss Ron Dennis said: "It is a matter to be discussed within the team, and we will do so later."

Hamilton had been comfortably quickest in both Q3 and Q2, the 22-year-old setting an incredible time of 1:19.301 in the latter with the cars at their lowest on fuel.

He was also fastest in Q1 until Alonso's late flyer, and perhaps will be a frustrated man after missing out on what would have been his third pole position of the season. The McLarens at least have the cushion of Nick Heidfeld behind them, with the BMW Sauber driver third ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in his Ferrari.

The top 10 is completed by Nico Rosberg for Williams, the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher, Robert Kubica for BMW Sauber, the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella, and then Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber for Toyota and Red Bull Racing.

Felipe Massa suffered his worst qualifying performance since the opening race of the season in Australia and the Brazilian will start today's race from 14th. The 26-year-old, who has started on pole in four of the previous 10 races this season and is just 11 points behind Hamilton in the drivers' standings, clearly had a problem with his Ferrari.

Massa was forced to abort one quick lap, pitting instead for fresh tyres, and as he exited his car just ground to a halt down the pit lane, underlining Ferrari's reliability problems this season.

After being rescued by his pit crew, he was soon out again, but he failed to show any improvement and will struggle to even finish on the podium as this is a notoriously difficult circuit on which to overtake. David Coulthard will start from 11th, just missing out on a place in Q1 by 0.015secs after being pipped in the dying stages of Q2 by Kubica.

Anthony Davidson starts 15th for Super Aguri, while Jenson Button will have to perform a rain dance if he is to repeat his victory of 12 months ago, which remains the only win of his F1 career from 126 races.

Aided by unusually wet conditions at this circuit last year, and following a superb drive, Button triumphed from 14th on the grid.

On this occasion he will start from 17th after being edged out of Q2 by just seven thousandths of a second by Tonio Liuzzi for Toro Rosso.

Behind Button come Honda team-mate Rubens Barrichello, Takuma Sato for Super Aguri, and Sebastian Vettel on his debut for Toro Rosso, just 0.4 of a second down on Liuzzi.

Unsurprisingly, Sakon Yamamoto will start at the back of the grid on his debut for Spyker as he has been slowest all weekend.

Yamamoto last raced in the Brazilian Grand Prix at the end of last year for Super Aguri, and it has showed, with the Japanese driver slower than team-mate Adrian Sutil by a second.

Explaining the mix-up with Hamilton in the pit lane, Alonso said: "The team held me back in this. We tried to have some space with the Ferrari (Raikkonen) in front of us."

Hamilton, though, was clearly unhappy as he said:

"There's not really much to say. You saw what happened.

The team did a great job and we had very good pace, but I'm not aware of what happened. You should ask the team."

When asked as to how long he missed out on setting a final quick lap, he tersely replied: "About the same amount of time I was held up in the pit stop."

HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX
Budapest, 1.00 Live, Setanta, 12.15; ITV 12.00