Sebastian Vettel has admitted that a second-placed finish in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix was the best that he could have hoped for.

The Red Bull driver benefited from Lewis Hamilton's engine failure in Q1, eventually finishing just under five tenths of a second behind leader Nico Rosberg.

"I think probably the nature of the track suits us a bit more – less straights," Vettel told reporters.

"It seems that we are a little bit closer but obviously Nico's final lap was very good so the gap was again quite big – bigger than we were hoping for, because if we get everything perfect and Nico maybe has a bit of a wobble, we can have a crack, but it didn't happen.

"They did a god job. Obviously Q3 was a mixed bag, it could have been anything, so therefore with the more dry conditions at the end to get second was the optimum."

Williams driver Valtteri Bottas finished qualifying in third place, while Vettel's Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo completed the course in fourth.