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McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix with a sizeable margin over Kimi Räikkönen’s Ferrari, after pole-sitter Fernando Alonso’s Renault had retired…

Hang on. What year is this? I know everyone jokes about going to Hungary being a trip back in time but this is ridiculous. This isn’t in the 2009 script, surely? But the Hungaroring is no respecter of the form book; it throws up more unlikely winners than any other F1 track.

The circuit is an anomaly; a looping series of corners than blend into one another, not allowing F1 cars much of an opportunity to overtake. The only real chance comes at the end of the start-finish straight – and that’s marginal. It is, in short, the perfect place to use KERS; the straight-line speed advantage it provides gives the driver that extra oomph to make a pass into turn one, whereas the extra weight that slows it down during the rest of the lap doesn’t matter: Hamilton could have been driving a Trabant between turns two and 14 and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

At the start, Fernando Alonso and his thimbleful of fuel disappeared into the distance. Alongside him Sebastian Vettel fell victim to the dirty side of the track and was slow to get away. Mark Webber got past, then Hamilton, having reached the required 100kph, ignited the KERS rocket and dumped Vettel further back.

Räikkönen from seventh did the same, only by now the field had reached the first corner, Kimi and Seb tried to share the same patch of tarmac and Kimi came out ahead, Vettel trailing in his wake. Seb’s car picked up damage in the collision that would ultimately result in a front-left suspension failure and retirement.

Webber held on to second position until lap five, when Hamilton lined up a move, hit the switch and let talent take care of the rest; good passes are rarer than hen’s teeth at the Hungaroring, so that one goes into the scrapbook. Meanwhile Alonso far, far away, having acknowledged his low-fuel level gave him no chance of victory, he nevertheless needed to pull out a margin in early exchanges.

He wasn’t going to win, but he could get on the podium. Alonso on the limit is a sight to behold; a slithering, beyond-the-limit car destroyer and a master of his trade. He came in on Lap 12, the first part of the job completed. But the pitstop was a disaster. In a bizarre replay of the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, the Renault crew failed to properly secure one of Alonso’s wheels. It destroyed the front wing endplate and then detached entirely from the car.

Alonso came back into the pits on three wheels. This has been a terrible seven days in motor sport, with two incidents and one fatality caused by stray components. The stewards probably had that in mind the stewards when they suspended Renault from the next race. La Regie have appealed, so Fernando Alonso may still race at Valencia. Regardless, he later retired with an unrelated mechanical problem.

With Alonso out of the picture, Hamilton led from Webber, with Räikkönen third, Rosberg fourth, Heikki Kovalainen fifth and Jenson Button sixth. Webber and Räikkönen both stopped on lap 19. Räikkönen got out first after slick work from Ferrari and Red Bull Racing released Webber almost into his path, picking up a reprimand from the stewards, but no more.

The two Toyotas were creeping up the order too. With both carrying a small lake’s worth of fuel, they stayed out longer and wore the opposition down; when everything shook out, Timo Glock was sixth and Jarno Trulli seventh, ahead of Button. The second round of stops saw Rosberg and Button make gains. Button was particularly impressive, putting in a series of fast laps with heavy fuel and cold tyres. It’s the sort of effort that wins races, but in Hungary it only dragged him into seventh.

Despite Kazuki Nakajima and Rubens Barrichello making a big push to steal eighth from Trulli, the order didn’t’ change in the last third of the race. Hamilton won at a canter with Räikkönen second and Webber third. Rosberg was fourth, Kovalainen fifth, Glock sixth, Button seventh and Trulli eighth.

With regard to the championships, Red Bull closed the gap on Brawn to 15.5 points, while Webber swept into second place in the Drivers’ Championship, leapfrogging Vettel. The Australian is now 18.5 points behind Button and 4.5 ahead of Vettel. Of the two it’s the battle for constructors’ honour that is getting the most interesting.

Despite a poor weekend, Button only saw his lead reduced by 2.5 points – but he will be worried. Hungary, though, is a freak race; these conditions will not be seen again this year and normality should return in Valencia.

With dusk falling on the Hungaroring, the McLaren crew are easy to spot, breaking down garage and paddock equipment clad the dayglo orange t-shirts they put on after a win. It’s been a while since we saw this particular sartorial disaster; the Chinese Grand Prix of 2008, to be exact. The Bulletin politely asked if they’d checked for moth holes and was greeted with several rude words and a particularly Anglo-Saxon gesture. It really is just like old times.

F1 Driver's Championship

Pos	Name	Nat	Team	Points
1	Jenson Button		Brawn-Mercedes	70
2	Mark Webber		Red Bull Racing-Renault	51.5
3	Sebastian Vettel		Red Bull Racing-Renault	47
4	Rubens Barrichello		Brawn-Mercedes	44
5	Nico Rosberg		Williams-Toyota	25.5
6	Jarno Trulli		Toyota	22.5
7	Felipe Massa		Ferrari	22
8	Lewis Hamilton		McLaren-Mercedes	19
9	Kimi Raikkonen		Ferrari	18
10	Timo Glock		Toyota	16
12	Fernando Alonso		Renault	13
13	Nick Heidfeld		BMW-Sauber	9
14	Sebastien Buemi		Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari	6
15	Robert Kubica		BMW-Sauber	3
16	Sebastien Bourdais		Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari	2
17	Giancarlo Fisichella		Force India-Mercedes	2
18	Kazuki Nakajima		Williams-Toyota	0
19	Adrian Sutil		Force India-Mercedes	0
20	Nelsinho Piquet		Renault	0
21	Jaime Alguersuari		Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari	0

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Article Details

Date

Jul 27, 2009

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