In the 25 years of the Hungarian Grand Prix, just six teams have managed to win on the circuit. We take a close look at the winners from the Hungaroring.
In 2011 making the short trip from Germany to Hungary seems very natural, but back in 1986, when the Iron Curtain was still dividing Europe, F1 was taking steps into a very different world. 200,000 people came to see Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna and co. and to this day there’s always a good crowd prepared to come from Budapest and sit on a hillside to watch F1 in the Hungaroring. It’s supposed to be the most boring F1 race of the year, but it rarely is.
Williams – 1986, 1987, 1990, 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997
There’s a nice symmetry to Williams wins in Hungary, Piquet won twice, Damon Hill won twice and Jacques Villeneuve won twice. The odd one out was Thierry Boutsen’s win in 1990. That result more than any other established the Hungaroring’s reputation as a tough place to pass, with lots of moves ending in the gravel and the unflappable Boutsen holding the ravening Ayrton Senna at bay in the final stages with the equivalent of a chair and a whip. Good stuff…
McLaren – 1988, 1991, 1992, 1999, 2000, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009
McLaren have a brilliant record in Hungary with nine wins. Senna took the first three, Mika Hakkinen the next two and Kimi Räikkönen simply drove away from everybody in 2005 – and recently McLaren have been pretty interesting too. In 2007, Hungary was the place where the wheels finally came off in the Fernando Alonso v Lewis Hamilton squabble – quite literally as both McLaren drivers indulged in a few games during qualifying. Fernando got a penalty, which left Lewis free to show that, whatever happens off track, he’s more that capable of ignoring it when the visor comes down. He won again in 2009, becoming the first man to do so in a hybrid, but special mention should be given to Heikki Kovalainen who in 2008, took his first F1 victory here, the fourth man to do so after Damon Hill, Alonso and Button. If sheer enthusiasm could be converted into horsepower, he’d have won a lot more.
Ferrari – 1989, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2004
Many drivers down the years have likened the Hungaroring to a great big karting circuit and complain that it’s almost impossible to make a decent pass – but (and this is rare) the moaners don’t include Nigel Mansell, who took Ferrari’s first F1 victory behind the Iron Curtain in 1989 – from 12th on the grid. Mansell dragged himself up to second and was chasing down Senna, when the backmarking Stefan Johansson got in the mix and gave Mansell his opportunity. Il Leone went away from Senna like he’d been shot from a cannon and won by nearly half a minute.
The prancing horse was something of a dancing donkey for the next decade, and didn’t get back to winning ways in Hungary until Schumacher (three) and Barrichello added four more wins around the turn of the century. But ignore that, watch this, it’s very cool…
Benetton/Renault – 1994, 2003
Schumacher’s 1994 victory for the team from Enstone wasn’t a huge surprise, he had already taken six victories that season, but when Fernando Alonso won in 2003, lapping Schumacher’s epoch-defining Ferrari in the process, that was something new. Alonso’s first win confirmed the young Spaniard’s enormous talent, but it also demonstrated that the team that had been Benetton and were now Renault could build a tidy car capable of winning grands prix – it was a fact that stood them and Fernando in good stead during the years to come.
Honda – 2006
Yet another debut win and this time it was Jenson Button in 2006. It’s fair to say he’d been knocking on the door for a while, having had 13 previous podiums but, starting 14th on the grid, no one expected him to be on the top step in Hungary. It was, however, a particularly wet top step, which might be a clue. The reason Button started in 14th was thanks to a Honda engine that ate its own cams and cost him 10 places for an engine change, but he was lining up between championship-chasing Alonso and Schumacher, both of whom had picked up penalties. On a track where it’s hard to pass, that would have been that, but then it started raining and all bets were off. The experienced Pedro de la Rosa spun on the parade lap and Felipe Massa spun on his way to the grid.
Räikkönen looked like winning before he inexplicably drove into the back of Tonio Liuzzi’s Toro Rosso (http://www.scuderiatororosso.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Toro-Rosso/001242807620404). Then Alonso was sent out with only three wheel nuts, which left Button to claim an unlikely victory, but after passing half the field in the spray, it was one which he entirely deserved.
Red Bull Racing – 2010
Last year Mark Webber’s victory here made Red Bull Racing the sixth winner of the Hungarian Grand Prix. Depending on your point of view, Mark either had a grand prix victory dropped in his lap or drove the best race of his career. Sebastian Vettel led from Alonso and Webber at the start and looked like he had things comfortably under control until the safety car appeared on lap 17 to allow some debris to be cleared up (Liuzzi again – it really isn’t his lucky circuit). The leaders all dived into the pits, except Mark who went to the head of the queue. There was mayhem in the pitlane and the unusual sight of a wheel bouncing past the press room window (on the third floor). Vettel and Alonso held their place, but Vettel was caught napping on the restart and picked up a drive-through penalty for falling too far behind the car in front. It left Webber the task of building enough of a gap over Alonso to make a pitstop and retain the lead. Alonso had (ahem) won the German Grand Prix a week earlier and was in feisty mood, but Webber managed to take 25 seconds off him in 25 laps, to go into the summer break leading the championship.
Of course, all anyone remembers from that race is Michael Schumacher demanding his old team-mate Rubens Barrichello use every inch of the track and a little it more when lapping him…
Want more?
- Head to redbull.com's Hungarian Grand Prix event page
- Read Mark Webber's excellent column for the BBC
- Keep up with the Red Bull F1 Spy on Twitter
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