It was a party time in Hungary with Alonso’s 30th birthday, Button’s 200th race, Rosberg’s and Toro Rosso's 100th. And as it befits such occasions, Hungaroring delivered a race to remember! Who would have expected...?
It was an intense festival of fights, overtakings, drama, strategic gambles and errors. Yes – errors, as there wasn’t a single driver on the grid last Sunday, who was flawless. Some mistakes were harmless (like Button’s who left the track a few times, as he himself confessed in the post-race press conference, but still won), some were dangerous (like Hamilton’s who nearly collected Paul di Resta on his way back to racing), some were numerous yet innocent (like Alonso’s who seemed to be all over the track, but still secured a podium finish) and some were costly (like Massa’s, who damaged his rear wing when hitting a barrier). I don’t know how it was with you, but for me the awareness that in those tricky conditions every single driver could make a mistake any moment and lose not only valuable time, but also places made it even more fascinating and nerve-wrecking up till the chequered flag.
Red Bull must have felt endangered with the speeding up McLaren and Ferrari as they decided to break the curfew for the first time this season, working long night hours before Saturday. It paid off and Sebastian Vettel got another pole, beating Lewis Hamilton by a small margin. Sunday brought some rain and so the teams decided to start on the intermediate tyres. When the lights went off, top 3 drivers maintained their positions. Behind them, the two Ferraris had a good start at first with Alonso jumping Massa (the Brazilian outqualified his team mate for the first time since Spa 2010 to grab P4), but they were soon overtaken by the two Mercedes drivers (who started P7 and P9). Further behind, Mark Webber lost position and found himself in P8 (starting P6). The Aussie was in fact lucky not to be overtaken by both Force Indias. Nick Heidfeld, who was knocked out in Q2 on Saturday, wasn’t lucky right from the beginning and after the first lap he was at the back of the pack.
Having lost places, the Ferrari drivers started fighting their way up the order right from the beginning. They both overtook Schumacher and Alonso even got in front of Rosberg only to make two mistakes and lose places to the German and Massa. However, the Brazilian decided to play it gentle and let Alonso through without much fight. Thanks to DRS, the Spaniard was soon in front of Rosberg again. Meanwhile, at the very front, we witnessed an intense battle for the lead between Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. The German succumbed on lap 5, made a mistake and let Hamilton through.
Massa was soon another driver to make a costly error as he spun his car and hit the barrier. Luckily, he was able to continue and the damaged rear wing didn’t seem to affect his pace (he managed to secure race’s fastest lap). At the back of the pack, Sebastién Buemi was making good progress: the Swiss started the race from the very back, having been handed a 5-places grid penalty for his collision with Heidfeld in Germany, but by lap 10 he was already 12th.
As the track was now drying out, the drivers changed the tyres to super soft slicks around laps 10–12. The leading order was now Schumacher (who was still on intermediate tyres), Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Alonso. Sebastian Vettel lost the pace and was now overtaken by Button, while Webber evened out Red Bull’s balance and got past Alonso, only to leave the track soon while lapping one of the Virgin cars (without any consequences though). Soon, the stewards were called into action: Pastor Maldonado was handed a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, while Lotus Team was under investigation for an unsafe release of Heikki Kovalainen’s car.
With his race compromised by the penalty, Maldonado tried hard to fight his way through, but lost a few further positions instead: he left the track during his attempt to overtake Kovalainen and was overtaken by a few other cars. Nick Heidfeld followed this pattern not much later: his overtaking manoeuvre on one of the Lotus cars saw him outside of the track and losing places. It wasn’t the end of Heidfeld’s misfortunes: the German wasn’t allowed to finish the race. On lap 23, he left the pit lane in fumes and as his car was set on fire, he was forced to jump out of it (something he’s already experienced in).
Spain 2011:
Hungary 2011:
Perhaps with a possibility of a safety car deployed, some of the drivers ducked into the pit lane for their second pit stop and fitted option tyres yet again.
By lap 28 the front runners lapped already the 17th driver in the order (Adrian Sutil, who started the race in top 10, but lost many places right at the beginning and finished the race outside of points and behind his rookie team mate Paul di Resta, who managed to climb to top ten and finished 7th, having started 11th). The following laps brought us some entertaining battles: Vettel was chasing the leading McLaren duo, Massa was fighting Kobayashi (successfully after a few laps), while Jaime Alguersuari didn’t show any respect for the most experienced driver on the grid and overtook Rubens Barrichello.
The supersoft tyres which were used in Budapest were expected to be much faster than the other – soft – compound, yet much less durable. Alonso, who chose an aggressive 4-stop strategy, went for his 3rd pit stop already on lap 36, around lap 40 Sebastian Vettel reported bad condition of his tyres (just about 12 laps after his pit stop), while Lewis Hamilton was told to stay out for 8–9 more laps, but couldn’t do it and visited his mechanics as soon as lap 40. During this round of pit stops some of the drivers (Button, Vettel) opted for the apparently much slower, but more durable prime tyres. However, the majority of the drivers still preferred the options. As the supersoft compound was being worn easily and most of the teams ran out of the available sets of these tyres, it meant that the drivers would have to visit the pit lane yet again and tackle the harder tyres eventually.
Laps 40–50 provided us with lots of entertainment engaging yet more close battles with inter alia Massa fighting with Alguersuari and Rosberg. Surprisingly, it turned out that the prime tyres are at this stage faster than the option tyres and so Sebastian Vettel (primes) was able to breeze past Fernando Alonso (options) in the DRS zone. However, the most entertaining battle was at the front: Button was like a shadow – right behind Hamilton. The 2008 World Champion spun on the wet surface which opened the door to the lead for his team mate. Rushing to rejoin the race, Hamilton spun the car back right in front of di Resta, who had to save himself by driving to the grass. Hamilton was later penalised for this behaviour.
This wasn’t the end of the battle for the lead: just a few laps after overtaking Hamilton, Button left the track himself and... let Hamilton through. Vettel too decided to make an excursion to the tarmac following Button closely. Button didn’t give up and the McLaren drivers provided us with a great battle with Hamilton being its eventual winner. Alas, it wasn’t enough to win the race.
With 20 laps to go, the drivers went for their final pit stops and the finishing order seemed to be established with Hamilton controlling the race. But it wasn’t to happen as the rain came. While most of the drivers decided to wait it through on the slick tyres, Hamilton and Webber gambled and took intermediate tyres. It could have been a great move if the rain had become heavier, but the weather had different plans and the rain turned out to be only a small shower. As a result of this gamble, Hamilton lost his place being overtaken by Alonso and was forced to switch back to slicks just a few laps later. His loss was intensified even more by his drive-through penalty. On lap 57 he was already in P6.
As a result, Button regained the eventual lead in front of Vettel and Alonso, who spun again harmlessly. Behind the podium finishers, Webber and Hamilton overtook Massa for P4 and P5 respectively. 7 laps from the end the Brit used the hustle on the track, when Webber was lapping backmarkers and claimed P4. The closing laps saw a few more battles, Sebastién Buemi managed to climb as high as P8 and finished the race 2 places in front of his team mate, despite starting it 7 places behind.
Another driver making a significant step forward was Force India’s Paul di Resta, who pitted only 3 times and managed to score 6 more points for his team.
On the other side of the scale were Renault and Mercedes. The Enstone-based team was off the pace for the whole weekend and with Heidfeld’s fire it was up to Petrov to deliver a result. However the Russian, like everyone around him, made some mistakes, spinning here and there and finished outside of points. Mercedes on the other hand, had a great start with their drivers in P4 (Rosberg) and P5 (Schumacher) after the opening lap. It wasn’t as good later on: Schumacher had a gearbox problem and retired on lap 26, while Rosberg vanished in the crowd and scored only 2 points for his 9th place.
It is also worth noticing that HRT’s Daniel Ricciardo, finished 18th in his only third race in F1, 2 places higher than his more experienced partner, Vitantonio Liuzzi and in front of one of the Virgin cars (the one of d’Ambrosio, who lost some valuable seconds when he spun in the pit lane heading for his box). Team Lotus still didn’t resolve their reliability issues as neither of the drivers made it to the finish line.
Sebastian Vettel might not have won the race, but his lead in the WDC is now bigger than it has ever been before: from his perspective, the victory went to the best driver possible, that is the one who is the smallest threat: before the Hungarian GP, Jenson Button was 5th in the standings (still is), while all the drivers that were between Vettel and Button (Hamilton, Webber and Alonso) finished the race behind the German, letting him extend the lead - he is now 85 points ahead of second Mark Webber.
The 4-weeks break is now on and as the forces of the leading teams seem more or less equal, we may expect a thrilling second half of the season. I am personally left with some mixed feelings: on the one hand, I’m ecstatic that the first half ended on such a high note, on the other hand I’m vastly disappointed that we have to wait a whole month now to see more of the great racing.
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