Vettel wins thrilling Hungarian Grand Prix

Ferrari Hungarian GP 2015

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel achieved his 41st career victory in a thrilling and drama-filled Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg suffered a terrible race despite dominating qualifying.

This was Sebastian’s first win at the Hungaroring and his second this season, bringing the four-time world champion on par with the great, late Ayrton Senna of 41 race victories.

It was also the first time since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix, a run of 29 races, where Mercedes failed to score a podium finish with either car with Hamilton sixth and Rosberg eighth.

This was a messy race for Lewis Hamilton. A poor start from pole position. Running wide at the chicane on the first lap when he felt Rosberg crossed his line and then losing time when he pitted for a new wing and then having to a drive-through penalty after colliding with Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.

But in defending second with a few laps to go, Rosberg clashed with Ricciardo at Turn 1, giving the Mercedes a puncture and damaging Ricciardo’s front wing.

Rosberg was forced to pit and rejoined in eighth, two positions behind Hamilton who had fought his way back through the field to increase his championship lead to 21 points.

Hamilton and Rosberg got away poorly from the front row at the start, allowing Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen to get ahead, with Rosberg running third ahead of Hamilton.

Ferrari looked on course for its first one-two since the 2010 German Grand Prix before a MGU-K problem cost The Iceman’s power. Raikkonen eventually retired after the team were unable to fix it.

The virtual safety car was called into action when Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India suffered a front wing failure, pitching the German head-on into the tyre barrier at Turn 1.

When it became clear there was too much debris on the track, the real safety car was sent out, bunching the field up and reducing Vettel’s sizeable lead – setting up a thrilling finale.

Daniil Kvyat scored a career-best second, to become the youngest driver to score a podium since Vettel in the 2008 Italian Grand Prix, the Russian benefitting from Ricciardo’s clash with Rosberg late on.

Ricciardo survived the contact, which the race stewards decided to take no further action on, with Rosberg to give Red Bull a double podium with third.

Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen, who had a drive-through penalty for making contact with Valtteri Bottas, battled his way up to a career-best fourth place.

The drama in the second-half of the race allowed Fernando Alonso to finish fifth, scoring McLaren-Honda’s best result of the season, with Jenson Button finishing ninth.

Romain Grosjean was seventh in the Lotus while Marcus Ericsson gave Sauber an unlikely point with tenth, a few seconds clear of team-mate Felipe Nasr.

Williams failed to score for only the second time this season, with Massa – who was given a time-penalty for being out of position on the grid and forcing an aborted start – P12 and Bottas P13.

So a dramatic race with Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel. Winning the Hungarian Grand Prix in honour of Jules Bianchi, who sadly passed away last week after losing his fight for survival.

Red Bull Racing scored their first podium finishes with Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo. While McLaren-Honda achieved a double points finish in the hands of Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.

Despite a troubled race, Mercedes were able to score points to maintain the lead in the championship.

The sport goes into the summer break and yet it will be fascinating if anyone can catch and challenge the Silver Arrows in the second half of the season.

Vettel Ferrari Hungarian GP 2015

Hungarian Grand Prix, race result after 69 laps:

1    Sebastian Vettel    Ferrari    1h46m09.985s
2    Daniil Kvyat    Red Bull-Renault    69    +15.748s
3    Daniel Ricciardo    Red Bull-Renault    69    +25.084s
4    Max Verstappen    Toro Rosso-Renault    69    +44.251s
5    Fernando Alonso    McLaren-Honda    69    +49.079s
6    Lewis Hamilton    Mercedes    69    +52.025s
7    Romain Grosjean    Lotus-Mercedes    69    +58.578s
8    Nico Rosberg    Mercedes    69    +58.876s
9    Jenson Button    McLaren-Honda    69    +67.028s
10    Marcus Ericsson    Sauber-Ferrari    69    +69.130s
11    Felipe Nasr       Sauber-Ferrari    69    +73.458s
12    Felipe Massa    Williams-Mercedes    69    +74.278s
13    Valtteri Bottas    Williams-Mercedes    69    +80.228s
14    Pastor Maldonado    Lotus-Mercedes    69    +85.142ss
15    Roberto Merhi    Marussia-Ferrari    67    +2 Laps
16    Will Stevens    Marussia-Ferrari    65    Retirement
–    Carlos Sainz    Toro Rosso-Renault    60    Retirement
–    Kimi Raikkonen    Ferrari    55    Power Unit
–    Sergio Perez    Force India/Mercedes    53    Retirement
–    Nico Hulkenberg    Force India/Mercedes    41    Retirement

Drivers’ standings:

1 Lewis Hamiton 202
2 Nico Rosberg  181
3 Sebastian Vettel 160
4 Valtteri Bottas 77
5 Kimi Raikkonen 76
6 Felipe Massa 74
7 Daniel Ricciardo 51
8 Daniil Kvyat 45
9 Nico Hulkenberg 24
10 Romain Grosjean 23
11 Max Verstappen 22
12 Felipe Nasr 16
13 Sergio Perez 15
14 Pastor Maldonado 12
15 Fernando Alonso 11
16 Carlos Sainz 9
17 Jenson Button 6
18 Marcus Ericsson 6
19 Roberto Merhi 0
20 Will Stevens 0

Constructors’ standings:

1 Mercedes 383
2 Ferrari 236
3 Williams-Mercedes 151
4 Red Bull-Renault 96
5 Force India-Mercedes 39
6 Lotus-Mercedes 35
7 Toro Rosso-Renault 31
8 Sauber-Ferrari 22
9 McLaren-Honda 17
10 Marussia-Ferrari 0

Next race: Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps. August 21-23.

7 thoughts to “Vettel wins thrilling Hungarian Grand Prix”

  1. Hungarian Grand Prix winner Sebastian Vettel has dedicated this top result in honour of Jules Bianchi. Autosport.com has the news story.

    Ferrari Formula 1 racer Sebastian Vettel dedicated his Hungarian Grand Prix victory to Jules Bianchi on a highly-emotional day at the Hungaroring.

    Prior to the race all 20 drivers, along with the Bianchi family, formed a circle and put their arms around one another as a minute’s silence was conducted in memory of Bianchi.

    The Frenchman passed away earlier this month from injuries sustained during the Japanese Grand Prix nine months ago, with his funeral held on Tuesday and attended by numerous drivers, including Vettel.

    A dramatic race concluded with Vettel claiming the 41st win of his F1 career, taking the cheqeuered flag ahead of Red Bull duo Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo.

    Over the radio Vettel initially paid homage in French to Bianchi as he said: “Merci Jules. C’est victoire est pour toi. [Thank you Jules. This victory is for you].”

    Switching to English, the four-times champion added: “You will always be in our hearts.

    “We know sooner or later Jules would have been a part of this team.”

    In being interviewed, Vettel again made clear his win was for Bianchi as he said:

    “Incredible day, but this victory is for Jules.

    “We know it has been an incredibly tough week, and for all of us very difficult, so this one is for him.

    “For all the people within Ferrari, all the Ferrari fans, we knew sooner or later he would have been part of our team, part of this family.”

    With Vettel holding a comfortable advantage in the race, the deployment of the safety car for an incident involving Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg put his win under serious threat.

    “Definitely from our point of view there was no need for that [the safety car],” Vettel said.

    “It obviously made it a lot more interesting in the end.

    “We had a great start, obviously it was crucial to get into the lead straight away.

    “The car was difficult but great to drive, and it has been a great race, we showed great pace, so thanks to the team for the recovery since Friday.

    “Today it just came together, and despite the safety car we still managed to win, so this one is for the team as well.”

  2. Nico Rosberg admits he is “gutted” to have lost out on so many points in the Hungarian Grand Prix after a late collision with Daniel Ricciardo.

    The Mercedes driver was in second place when Ricciardo attempted to overtake into turn one and ran deep into the corner. Rosberg took the racing line on exit but the Red Bull was still on his outside and the contact left Rosberg with a puncture which dropped him to eighth place at the finish.

    “It was going very well, I was very pleased with the race until lap 64 and after that just nowhere, and that’s a real pity,” Rosberg said. “Sport is really tough sometimes, to lose all those points, but it’s the way it is.”

    Rosberg reluctantly accepted the stewards’ decision not to penalise either driver, but hinted he felt Ricciardo was at fault.

    “I assumed it was my corner because I took the ideal line and he just went straight on because he braked very late, but he still had his front wing there and didn’t back out of it. But the FIA decided no action so nobody has fault then, I guess.”

    Asked if he is looking forward to the summer break, Rosberg replied: “After a race like that I want to race again tomorrow! I’m gutted about today.”

    Source: F1i

  3. Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo commented that he has no regrets over his clashes during the Hungarian Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the details.

    Daniel Ricciardo said he had no regrets about the aggressive moves he made in an incident-packed Hungarian Grand Prix where he clashed with both Mercedes Formula 1 drivers.

    The Red Bull driver, who took an opportunistic victory at the Hungaroring last year, had to settle for third place in 2015 after pitting for a new front wing following a collision with Nico Rosberg as they battled for second at the first corner.

    That came after his car had earlier sustained damage to its sidepod and floor when he tried to pass Lewis Hamilton around the outside into Turn 1 and was hit by the reigning world champion.

    While Ricciardo eventually missed out on a shot at race winner Sebastian Vettel in the closing stages and also lost out to his team-mate Daniil Kvyat for second, he said he was pleased with the way he attacked.

    “I left everything on the track,” said Ricciardo, who also made contact with Valtteri Bottas’s Williams on lap one.

    “Whether some competitors like it or not, that’s how I like to do it and how I’ll always do it.

    “I feel all my moves on track were…I was inspired today.

    “I could have sat in third and accepted that, but I had the chance to win and I went for it.

    “It’s a shame how it ended up but at the same time I don’t regret what I did.”

    Ricciardo said he was determined to put in a special performance following the death of Jules Bianchi a week before the race.

    “I felt I drove with a heavy but a strong heart and that makes me happy,” he said.

    “This race was definitely for Jules – watching Jules grow up that’s how he did it.

    “It’s been an emotional week, and this one is definitely for him.”

    Kvyat took advantage of the incidents ahead of him to finish second to Vettel, scoring his first F1 podium.

    “It’s hard to describe what I feel today,” said the Russian.

    “Today I learned never to give up whatever happens – others were fighting around me and I found myself in second.

    “Daniel had a better shot at victory than I did – he did the right thing to go for it.

    “This weekend I have been able to take every opportunity, and that’s why I’m here now.”

  4. This was a very good race for McLaren-Honda with both cars finishing in the points. Fernando Alonso has says that his fifth place was just ‘unbelievable’. His team-mate Jenson Button took ninth. Autosport.com has the news story.

    Fernando Alonso emerged from a “chaotic” Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix with a result he has hailed as “unbelievable” for McLaren.

    Following an incident-strewn race Alonso claimed the Honda-powered team’s best result of a troubled season with fifth position at the Hungaroring.

    With team-mate Jenson Button ninth, it was the first time this year McLaren finished a grand prix with both cars in the points.

    Alonso said: “The race was chaotic in some parts, and we took advantage of the opportunities that arrived to us, and we maximised the result.

    “Fifth is unbelievable, a little impressive for us because in this moment we are not super competitive

    “For the whole team, the people at the factory working 24 hours a day just to keep updating the car, to get some points is a good way to go into the break.

    “We know the car is improving, we know we are getting more competitive, but it’s always nice to touch it with your hands.

    “At the end of the day we are here to compete, to win one day, but we are not in that position right now.

    “We know we are going in the right direction, but it’s always better if you score points.

    “We were a little bit lucky with some of the things that happened in the race, but in some races we’ve been unlucky, so we need to take every opportunity.”

    Button felt he could have potentially have finished as high as Alonso, but for the fact his tyres were not replaced during a safety car period, resulting in him being on old rubber come the end of the race.

    “I’d rather have been up where Fernando is, but he did a great job, and also the strategy worked for him in putting on the soft tyres in the final stint,” assessed Button.

    “Most people stopped under the safety car, but I didn’t, which made it very difficult because the tyres were old when we started again.

    “So I did a very long stint whereas other people were on new tyres.

    “I was running on primes when others were on options, so it was very, very difficult to hold people behind.

    “Tough one, that was a mistake, but I still scored points.

    “For the team it’s great to get points going into the summer break, but we are also realistic and we understand what was going on in a crazy race.

    “There were a lot of offs and drivethroughs, which helped us quite a bit, but good to get some points, and both be in the points as well.

    “This is a step forward, but we need another step forward if we’re going to repeat this.”

  5. Force India believes Nico Hulkenberg’s dramatic front wing failure in the Hungarian Grand Prix was probably caused by vibrations over kerbs at the Hungaroring Formula 1 circuit.

    Hulkenberg crashed out of the race at Turn 1 when his front wing failed at high speed, sending him into the tyre wall.

    It was the second big accident of the weekend for Force India, after Sergio Perez rolled in free practice following a suspension failure from running over the kerbs too much.

    Force India will investigate Hulkenberg’s failure, but the team’s chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer reckons it was also caused by the kerbs.

    “We’re investigating how and why it failed and I think it’s got something to do with the unique inputs the car gets here over the kerbs and the rumble strips,” Szafnauer told AUTOSPORT.

    “We don’t test anywhere else like this so you can’t just test and say you’ll be fine there [in Hungary].

    “This is the only circuit like this, and Ferrari had a front wing failure too [with Kimi Raikkonen in practice], and Kimi also lost a camera pod in the race.

    “That’s all down to vibrations and how you mount the parts.”

    Szafnauer added changes may need to be made to the kerbs, but Force India will also strengthen its parts.

    “Whether they change [the circuit] or we change the car to suit, you’ve got to do one of the two,” he said.

    “We’ve not had anything like this before, and it’s tough because the pace of the car has really improved.

    “We can definitely fix this and come back and be reliable. The wishbone is already fixed and we’ll fix the wing.”

    Hulkenberg was battling with the Red Bulls – which both finished on the podium – earlier in the race, and Force India feels it let a very good result slip away.

    “To have something like this happen when there are opportunities for us and to not take it, that’s tough,” said Szafnauer.

    “When Nico’s wing failed we were ahead of Kvyat – I don’t think Kvyat was ahead of us the whole race.

    “Could we have kept him behind us? Nico thinks maybe, maybe not.

    “I hate to say we’d have been on the podium, but we were there or thereabouts with Kvyat.”

    Force India changed Perez’s front wing mid-race as a precaution, and the Mexican retired from the race due to a long brake pedal late-on.

    Source: Autosport.com

  6. After seeing Sebastian Vettel winning the race, his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen admitted it was painful to lose a one-two result due to a MGU-K issue. Autosport.com has the story.

    Ferrari Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen said it was painful to miss out on completing a one-two result for the team in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

    The Finn jumped to second from fifth on the grid at the start, and was running comfortably behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who went on to take Ferrari’s second win of the season.

    But with 28 laps to go, Raikkonen experienced a problem with his engine’s MGU-K and though Ferrari attempted a fix, it led to other problems and the team decided to retire the car.

    It was Raikkonen’s third retirement of the season and comes as his F1 future remains the subject of speculation, with Ferrari yet to decide whether to keep him for next year.

    “We’ve had bad races, that is one more,” said Raikkonen.

    “Obviously it would have been much greater for the team to have a one-two, but as a team we still won with Seb so it is good for the team.

    “It was a pain for us not to be one and two because we easily had the speed and everything was there, we just got done by a problem with the car.

    “Unfortunately that’s part of the luck for us and part of the business and part of the racing and there is nothing we could do.

    “The car went wrong but we did the maximum level we could at the end of the day.”

    Raikkonen is now 86 points behind team-mate Sebastian Vettel but he is hopeful things will get better when the season resumes after the summer break with the Belgian Grand Prix next month.

    “When you look at the end result it’s not such a great thing but it looks far away from the disaster of last year,” said Raikkonen.

    “We’ve had all the issues and problems and now we keep pushing and hopefully we get a little bit of luck.

    “We showed that we can do a great result, great races, but we just have to make sure we don’t have any issues in part of the weekend.”

  7. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton says sorry to his team after a “bad day”. Autosport.com has the details.

    Lewis Hamilton took full blame and apologised to Mercedes for his incidents in a race his team chief Toto Wolff described as a “nightmare” of a Hungarian Grand Prix.

    A slow start off the line for both front row-starting Mercedes was compounded on lap one when Hamilton went off at the chicane and ran through the gravel trap, dropping him to 11th.

    Hamilton then fought his way back through the field to fourth, with a safety car later appearing to aid his cause by bunching up the field.

    The championship leader, though, collided with Daniel Ricciardo at the restart, requiring not only a new front wing, but also earning a drive-through penalty for the incident.

    Despite his issues, Hamilton still managed to finish sixth, opening up a 21-point cushion over Rosberg who came home eighth due to tyre problems and his own clash with Ricciardo late on that resulted in a puncture.

    “What a day, that was a hard afternoon,” said Hamilton. “I definitely had a bad day at the office.

    “It was one of the worst races I think I’ve had, and all I can do is apologise to the team and work hard to make amends at the next race.

    “A day like today, when you make mistakes and it affects the team, it hurts.”

    Rosberg was running second on lap 64 of the 69-lap race, with eventual winner Sebastian Vettel in his sights, when Ricciardo overcooked an overtaking move into Turn 1.

    As the duo emerged out of the turn, Ricciardo caught the right-rear tyre on Rosberg’s car with his front wing, causing a puncture and a time-consuming run back to the pits for the German for a change of rubber.

    Assessing his race, Rosberg said: “I was very pleased with it until lap 64, and after that, just nowhere.

    “That’s a real pity. Sport is real tough sometimes, to lose all those points, but that’s the way it is.

    “With Ricciardo, I assumed it was my corner because I took the ideal line and he just went straight on because he braked very late, or too late.

    “He still had his front wing there and didn’t back out of it, but the FIA decided no action, so nobody has fault then I guess.”

    Mercedes motorsport boss Wolff felt Ricciardo’s move was “questionable” and it was “more of a mistake” of the Australian, but like Rosberg he accepted the stewards’ decision.

    As for the race overall, Wolff added: “For us, it was incident packed. We had more incidents in this one race than we did throughout the season.

    “We knew that day would come, and it was today. It was a nightmare for all of us.”

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