BUDAPEST, Hungary — Lewis Hamilton took a big step toward winning his third straight Formula One race Saturday by claiming the pole position for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The McLaren driver set a fastest lap of 1 minute, 20.899 seconds for his 10th career pole and second at the twisting Hungaroring track. Hamilton was more than two-tenths of a second faster than teammate Heikki Kovalainen to give McLaren a 1-2 front row Sunday.

Ferrari's Felipe Massa will start from third ahead of Robert Kubica of BMW Sauber. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen is sixth, behind Timo Glock of Toyota.

The 23-year-old Hamilton, who was fastest through all three practice sessions, is vying to become the fifth repeat winner and first Briton since Damon Hill 12 years ago to win three straight races.

Coming off wins at Silverstone and Hockenheim, Hamilton showed why McLaren is in control of the championship with its first 1-2 front row since last year's Italian GP.

"It's been a pretty decent weekend. The pace of the car is great, I think it's a great day to have me and Heikki 1-2 — it's about time we did that," said Hamilton, who leads Massa by four points and Raikkonen by seven in the standings.

"(Kovalainen is) pushing me hard, but that's a good thing."

Massa was encouraged despite Ferrari failing to match its principal rival for the second straight race.

"I think we're pretty strong," the Brazilian said. "We didn't seem to be very strong this morning but looking at the lap times from (the first two sessions), I think we are there."

Massa led the second session with a lap time that was fractionally better than Michael Schumacher's track record, but was unhappy with traffic during the final 10-minute timing.

"The lap wasn't perfect ... the traffic meant I couldn't prepare my tires," Massa said.

Renault's Fernando Alonso starts behind Raikkonen in seventh, ahead of Red Bull's Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli of Toyota. Nelson Piquet Jr. of Renault rounds out the top 10.

Nick Heidfeld's qualifying woes continued. The BMW Sauber driver failed to make it out of the first session after running wide at the final turn on his flying lap to start 16th — his worst placing of the season.

Heidfeld's hopes of staying with Hamilton will be tough at the tight Hungaroring circuit, where overtaking is nearly impossible. The 31-year-old German trails Hamilton by 17 points.