Daniel Ricciardo achieved his second Formula 1 victory after making two bold overtaking moves on Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso in the final three laps of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Alonso looked set to end a long victory drought for Ferrari, but in the end, the double world champion found the 32-lap final stint on a set of soft Pirelli tyres just too much and thus had to settle for second position.
Hamilton reduced the points gap to championship rival Nico Rosberg by taking an podium finish after a pitlane start, just fending off his Mercedes team-mate over the final lap as he battled to the finish on a well-worn set of medium tyres.
Hamilton also survived a brush with the barrier after spinning at Turn 2 on the first lap, not forgetting the latest intra-team controversy by holding up team-mate Rosberg during his final stint despite radio requests to let him through.
Rosberg dropped to seventh after his third and final stop with 14 laps to the flag, but charged back to fourth to minimise the damage inflicted by two-stopper Hamilton to his championship lead to just three points.
Pole sitter Rosberg had dominated the wet early stages, leading Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel and the fast-starting Fernando Alonso.
But this quartet had to wait an extra lap before pitting for dry tyres when Marcus Ericsson crashed heavily exiting Turn 3 on lap nine, bringing out the Safety Car.
This dropped them into the pack behind Ricciardo’s Red Bull and the McLarens of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen, and not far ahead of Hamilton, who had made rapid progress through the midfield.
McLaren gambled on more rain, so fitted Button with a new set of intermediate tyres and left Magnussen out on his original set. This gambled didn’t work out and the McLarens were forced to pit for dry tyres in racing conditions.
A huge crash for Sergio Perez – who had earlier collided with his Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg – exiting the final corner on lap 23 brought the safety car back out, and Ricciardo and the Williams pair of Bottas and Felipe Massa dived for the pits.
This left Alonso in the lead, but the Spaniard’s gamble on a two-stop strategy didn’t work out as Ricciardo charged back to the head of the field over the final few laps.
Massa ran as high as second, but switched to a three-stop strategy and made it home fifth, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who scored his best result since returning to Ferrari this season by rising from P16 on the grid to sixth.
Vettel ran in the top order early on, but spoiled his race with an 360-degree spin after catching the wet kerb exiting the final corner on lap 32.
The reigning world champion narrowly avoided hit the pit wall and in the end, brought his Red Bull home in seventh position, ahead of Bottas – who lost out badly in the pits – and the Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne, who also ran at the front early on.
Button recovered from McLaren’s early strategic mistake to claim the final point for tenth.
So an exciting first half of Formula 1 2014. Three different winners achieved by just two teams. The racing resumes in a month’s time at the spectacular Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Can Nico Rosberg maintain his lead for the championship or will Lewis Hamilton come back and snatch it? We will find out after the summer break.
Hungarian Grand Prix, race results after 70 laps:
1. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 1h53m05.058s
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari +5.225s
3. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +5.857s
4. Nico Rosberg Mercedes +6.361s
5. Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes +29.841s
6. Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +31.491s
7. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault +40.964s
8. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes +41.344s
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Renault +58.527s
10. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes +1m07.280s
11. Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari +1m08.169s
12. Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes +1m18.465s
13. Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault +1m24.024s
14. Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso-Renault -1 lap
15. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari -1 lap
16. Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari -1 lap
Retirements:
Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 33 laps
Kamui Kobayashi Caterham-Renault 25 laps
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 23 laps
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 15 laps
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 11 laps
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 8 laps
Drivers’ championship:
1. Nico Rosberg 202
2. Lewis Hamilton 191
3. Daniel Ricciardo 131
4. Fernando Alonso 115
5. Valtteri Bottas 95
6. Sebastian Vettel 88
7. Nico Hulkenberg 69
8. Jenson Button 60
9. Felipe Massa 40
10. Kevin Magnussen 37
11. Sergio Perez 29
12. Kimi Raikkonen 27
13. Jean-Eric Vergne 11
14. Romain Grosjean 8
15. Daniil Kvyat 6
16. Jules Bianchi 2
17. Adrian Sutil 0
18. Marcus Ericsson 0
19. Pastor Maldonado 0
20. Esteban Gutierrez 0
21. Max Chilton 0
22. Kamui Kobayashi 0
Constructors’ championship:
1. Mercedes 393
2. Red Bull-Renault 219
3. Ferrari 142
4. Williams-Mercedes 135
5. Force India-Mercedes 98
6. McLaren-Mercedes 97
7. Toro Rosso-Renault 17
8. Lotus-Renault 8
9. Marussia-Ferrari 2
10. Sauber-Ferrari 0
11. Caterham-Renault 0
Next race: Belgium Grand Prix, Spa-Francorchamps. August 22-24.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo feared he would retire from the Hungarian Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the full story.
Hungarian Grand Prix winner Daniel Ricciardo has revealed that he feared he was going to retire from the race when he suffered engine problems out on track.
The Australian, who took victory in a thrilling Formula 1 race with late passes on Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, felt his car was down on power earlier on and had to adjust some settings on the steering wheel to manage the situation.
“I had a scare in the middle of the race,” Ricciardo told the media after the podium ceremony.
“For a few laps we had a few issues and we were down on power, so I had to get a bit crazy on the switches.
“So the race could have potentially finished early but we got through that and I was happy.”
The Red Bull driver said he knew that he had a shot of victory when he was chasing world champions Alonso and Hamilton in the closing stages.
“We had to overtake to win the race – we had fresher tyres but I knew it would be an exciting finish,” Ricciardo added.
“There was only one way to win it which was getting around them.
“I tempted Lewis into Turn 2 the previous lap and eventually I got him.
“Once I got close enough to Fernando I knew I had to go for it – I was in a sandwich with Lewis in DRS range so I couldn’t waste too much time.
“When I got the lead I knew there were a couple of laps to go, and that feels good.”
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton felt ‘shocked’ by the team orders to let his championship leader Nico Rosberg through. The 2008 world champion made the decision not to obey and kept his track position. Autosport.com has the details.
Lewis Hamilton has revealed he was “very shocked” his Mercedes Formula 1 team ordered him to move aside for team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg during the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Hamilton started from the pitlane and went off on the opening lap in the wet but he was helped by two safety cars in the first half of the race and utilised a two-stop strategy to eventually recover to third.
Rosberg, who had started from pole but dropped down the order under the first safety car, was on a three-stop strategy and still needed to pit for a new set of soft tyres when he caught his medium-shod team-mate with one-third of the race remaining.
The Briton was told over the radio to let Rosberg through, to which Hamilton replied “I’m not letting him past me, if he gets close enough to overtake he can overtake.”
He kept the championship leader behind for eight laps until Rosberg made his final stop.
Rosberg was able to catch Hamilton before the end of the race but was unable to pass his team-mate and has seen his lead cut to 11 points.
“Obviously I am aware that I was in the same race as him, just because he had one more stop than me doesn’t mean I am not in same race,” Hamilton argued.
“If I let him past then he could pull away and come back at me later.
“I was very, very shocked that the team would ask me to do that [move aside].
“He didn’t get close enough to overtake, I was not going to lift off and lose ground to Fernando [Alonso] or Daniel [Ricciardo], so it was a bit strange.”
The 2008 world champion admitted it was difficult to bounce back from yet another disappointment in qualifying, but he was satisfied to claim a second-successive podium after starting at the back.
However, despite taking three points off Rosberg’s lead Hamilton said he viewed the weekend as a missed opportunity in the championship.
“This is damage limitation,” he added. “I was just pushing as hard as I could to get as high as I could.
“I cannot explain the pain you feel when you have issues such as issues I have had in last couple of races.
“It is difficult to swallow, and to come back next day and attack.
“You are pushing way beyond what you would do if you were on pole position.
“It feels satisfying coming through [and] to be ahead and still in the fight is still encouraging.”
Formula 1 championship leader Nico Rosberg has denied that he asked to be let through by Mercedes team-mate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton during the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The German was running behind Hamilton before of his final pitstop, and the Mercedes team ordered Hamilton – who did not have another stop to make – to let him through to benefit Rosberg’s strategy.
Hamilton refused to back off, and admitted after the race that he was “very, very shocked” to be asked to let his main rival through.
Rosberg was heard asking on the team radio why Hamilton had not moved over, but he denied that he had originally requested to be let by.
“I didn’t want it, it was the team that informed me that he was going to let me past,” said Rosberg after the race.
“That was it. I don’t know what happened then. We need to discuss it.”
Rosberg declined to elaborate further on his view of the team orders situation, saying that it was a matter for the team to resolve in private.
“We have to discuss it internally, it would not make sense for me to speak about that now,” he added.
“I don’t want to speak theoretically about that situation. It’s better to discuss that in the team.
“Of course I’m going to sit down with the team, Lewis will be there also, and we are going to go through everything and see how much we can learn from today, as always.”
Rosberg tried to pass Hamilton for third on the outside of Turn 2 on the final lap but his team-mate forced him wide, and Rosberg said he was frustrated to let that chance slip.
“I caught them [Fernando Alonso and Hamilton] at the end, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough,” he said.
“That’s what’s most annoying for me now – the last lap – I had the chance and I wasn’t able to use it.
“I’m just disappointed that I didn’t make it happen. That was a pity.
“Of course there are still some positives, but I’m not able to see that at the moment as I’m still in the last lap.”
Source: Autosport.com
This was a bad race for McLaren-Mercedes, with both drivers caught out on the wrong tyre strategy in the early wet stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Autosport.com has the story.
McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has blamed the Formula 1 team’s radar software for the decision to keep Jenson Button on intermediate tyres in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Button was running fifth early in Sunday’s race before taking on a fresh set of intermediates when the majority of the field switched to slicks during the race’s first safety car period.
Though the Briton briefly took the lead from eventual winner Daniel Ricciardo when racing resumed, he fell back as his intermediate tyres overheated, and he dropped to the tail end of the field after being forced to change to slick tyres just two laps after the restart.
He eventually finished 10th, two places ahead of team-mate Kevin Magnussen who had stayed out on his old intermediates while others pitted and briefly held fourth.
“We got the belief it would rain, the radar clearly indicated it would,” Boullier told AUTOSPORT.
“We didn’t know something was wrong with the software.
“As long as we had this belief we saw the opportunity by doing what we did to get some key positions.
“It’s true that with everybody on slicks we understood something was wrong and clearly we understand our call was wrong.”
Button criticised the team’s calls post-race and admitted the tyre strategy was particularly disappointing as it followed a strong opening stint from the 2009 world champion.
“There were lots of wrong decisions in that race,” he lamented.
“You win and you lose as a team. We thought it was going to rain but we were the only people that thought that.
“I feel like I did everything right, and in every track condition, which is why it’s tough. The first stint was great but it went downhill from there.”
Rookie team-mate Magnussen said that while it was frustrating, the ultimate blame lay with the drivers, not the team.
“It was my call to stay on inters,” he insisted. “The team always rely on the driver in these situations and I made the wrong decision, it’s not really down to the team.
“The team can only say what the radar says. They are not gods, they cannot control the weather.
“So I don’t blame the team; these things happen and they’re impossible to predict.
“From my perspective, starting from the pitlane we weren’t going to [be able to] do much as overtaking is very difficult here.
“Taking that chance would have been amazing if it had worked but it just didn’t.”
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has admitted that this second place finish is just like a win. Autosport.com has the details.
Fernando Alonso says that finishing second in the Hungarian Grand Prix felt like a win, despite being passed by Daniel Ricciardo in the closing stages.
The Spaniard started fifth but ran a long final stint and led the race for 13 laps before losing out to the Red Bull driver.
But after fending off the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg to take second place, Alonso said the risk of staying out on old tyres was the right decision.
“Just 10 laps to the end we were discussing if we stop and secure the fourth place we really needed – those points,” said Alonso after the race.
“It was a difficult call: stopping and finishing fourth or keep going and risking the cliff with the tyres and finishing fourth or fifth or whatever.
“At the end we chose the right thing – stay out, defend the position as best we could and secure this second place that feels like a victory at the moment.
“It was a complex race to execute, because there were some difficulties that made the 70 laps not straightforward.
“You just need to make the decisions during the race and all of them were together with the team, and I think we did the best we could.”
RAIKKONEN UNMOVED BY SIXTH
Alonso’s Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen recovered from 16th on the grid to finish sixth, but the Finn said he took little satisfaction from scoring his best result of the season.
“Sixth doesn’t really give me anything – I’m here to win races,” said Raikkonen.
“It’s good points but still nowhere near where we should be. I’m still disappointed.
“We are going in the right direction but there is still a long way to go.”
Formula One leaders Mercedes recognised on Sunday that the title battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has reached a point where the drivers will put their own interests first.
“Maybe what we decided at the beginning of the season doesn’t function any more,” team boss Toto Wolff told reporters at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
“We cannot really ask either driver to give up their position or jeopardise their own championship chances for the benefit of the team,” added the Mercedes motorsport head.
Hamilton refused a request in the race to allow championship-leading team mate Rosberg, who had started on pole but was behind him on a different strategy and still had a pitstop to make, through.
The message ‘don’t hold him up’ was made twice to Hamilton, who eventually finished third with Rosberg fourth, over the radio with a third of the race remaining.
“I’m not letting him past me, if he gets close enough to overtake he can overtake,” replied the 2008 champion, who stayed ahead for eight more laps until Rosberg pitted.
Had the Briton made way, Rosberg – who denied making any request to be let through – might have been able to win for Mercedes instead of both being beaten by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
But Hamilton, who had started from the pitlane, would have fallen further behind in the championship instead of cutting the gap to 11 points with eight races remaining.
VERY SHOCKED
Hamilton said he was “very, very shocked” by the request.
“I was in the same race as him. Just because he had one more stop than me doesn’t mean I wasn’t in the same race as him,” he explained. “And naturally if I’d have let him past, he would have had the opportunity to pull away and when he does pit, he’s going to come back and overtake me.
“To be honest, he didn’t get close enough to overtake but I was never going to lift off and lose ground to Fernando (Alonso) or Daniel to enable him to have a better race. So that was a bit strange.”
Mercedes, dominant this season, have made a point of not imposing ‘team orders’ in an effort to keep the fans entertained but that has brought friction between their drivers as well as some thrilling wheel-to-wheel battles.
Wolff said in March that the pair were free to race, within defined limits and as long as the team did not lose out.
He said on Sunday that with Mercedes now 174 points clear or Red Bull in the constructors’ championship, and the drivers in a duel of their own for that title, there needed to be a fresh discussion of how to proceed.
“It’s a difficult situation now,” he said. “The longer the season goes, the more intense it gets. At the beginning of the season it was easy to say these are the rules and this is how we are going to do it.
“Now it’s clear these two are fighting for the world championship and it’s more intense. We need to sit down and discuss it.”
Mercedes have won nine of the 11 races to date – five for Hamilton – and Rosberg had been expected to celebrate his fifth on Sunday after starting from pole position with Hamilton last.
Instead, the safety car threw the race on its head with Rosberg on a three stop to Hamilton’s two.
Niki Lauda, the retired three-times world champion who is now non-executive chairman of Mercedes, said Hamilton did what he had to do.
“I do understand that Lewis said ‘Why? Why should I stop now in the middle of the circuit to let my team colleague by.’ He is fighting for the championship,” he told reporters.
“From my point of view, Lewis was right. Why the call came, this happened out of the panic and we had to make up for what we were losing.
“The call was unnecessary, afterwards, but it was made. Lewis ignored it and finished third, so looking backwards nothing wrong from my point of view,” he said.
“It is important Lewis said ‘No, I’m racing my team-mate anyway’. So he did the right thing.”
Source: Reuters