Hamilton rides high with Hungarian GP victory
Lewis Hamilton dominated the 24th running of the Hungarian Grand Prix to claim his first victory of the season and the tenth of his career. Starting fourth, the defending champion made short work of Sebastian Vettel and then passed Mark Webber before taking the lead when Renault and Fernando Alonso faltered. From that point on Hamilton controlled his pace and took the chequered flag 11.5 seconds clear of Kimi Raikkonen while Mark Webber finished third.
As expected the KERS-equipped McLaren Mercedes proved rapid off the line at the start of the 70-lap marathon, as Hamilton briefly secured second position before running wide at the first turn. This allowed Webber to regain the position but on lap four Hamilton pressured Webber into a defensive line into the first turn and took the position at the next corner with an aggressive pass around the outside.
At this point pole-sitter Fernando Alonso was three seconds up the road on his light fuel load. The double world champion pitted as expected on lap 13 but the team did not fit the front right wheel correctly and the Spaniard was soon three-wheeling his way back to the pits and a few laps later into retirement.
Out front, Hamilton quickly pulled an advantage from Webber who opted to take the harder prime tyre for this second stint. This cost the German Grand Prix winner pace but that would prove academic anyway as a slow pit stop had already allowed Kimi Raikkonen through into second position.
Raikkonen kept the pressure on Hamilton with the gap steady at six or seven seconds until the second round of stops and then controlled his pace to the chequered flag to record his best result of the season and to make a little history as he and Hamilton celebrate a KERS one-two result.
Nico Rosberg finished in fourth position to extend his points run with the Williams Toyota team while Heikki Kovalainen secured his third points finish of the season with fifth position in the second McLaren Mercedes.
Toyota used long first stints to really push Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli up the order after a poor run in qualifying.
Glock finished sixth in his TF109 as he chased Kovalainen across the line while Trulli took the final point in eighth position.
Jenson Button started seventh in his championship leading Brawn Mercedes and finished one place higher. It was not a good race weekend for the team as Alonso’s early exit helped him up one position as he and the team continue to mention ‘tyres’ as the reason in their recent decline in performance. Perhaps it is the problem, but Button’s championship advantage is trimmed to 18.5 points from Webber ahead of the summer break.
Kazuki Nakajima battled hard but was just out of the points once again in his Williams as he chased Trulli for the final point in the closing laps. Rubens Barrichello was unable to make up much ground after his qualifying problems yesterday in the second Brawn as he finished tenth.
Other notables included Sebastian Vettel who started on the front-row of the grid alongside Alonso but made a poor start and dropped down the order. Battling with Raikkonen exiting the first turn his front left wheel came into contact with Raikkonen’s right rear and this would later force his retirement with suspension damage. Vettel’s DNF, his fourth of the season, combined with team-mate Webber finishing third sees him drop to third in the standings.
Jaime Alguersuari meanwhile made his Grand Prix debut and achieved his objective of finishing his first race with the Toro Rosso team. Not only that, the youngest ever Grand Prix driver finished ahead of team-mate Sebastien Buemi. Mission accomplished for the Red Bull protégé.
Today however was all about Hamilton’s stunning return to the top step of the podium with McLaren Mercedes ahead of the looming summer break and then back-to-back races in Valencia and Spa Francorchamps. The championship is far from over…
Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International