The Hungarian GP, they say its Monaco without the barriers, its a fast, rough and has some very narrow straights on it, but that didn’t stop the convoy from coming there. It was a good start, no major drama’s, on the run into turns 1, 2 and 3, It was a poor start by Webber though, as he let the other clutch paddle go a little too early, and it made him go to the limiter, and that cost him second place at the start. Alonso had a great start, but when Vettel got to turn 1, Alonso was blocked, so he could not get the power down, and get into the lead. By turn 4 the Toro Rosso of Alguersuari had a engine problem, I think it looked like he lost oil, as there was oil leaking onto the track, but he parked it in the end.
On lap 9, Liuzzi went wide into turn 3, letting Button and Kobayashi through. So with Button’s strategy working, he radioed into his engineer, and said this “The car in front [Rubens] is on primes” then his engineer said “ok Jenson, keep going we will find a time to pit” and I think that is extraordinary, he was taking a corner at 5G and he still had time to look at Rubens tyres. Anyhow the team wanted to run Jenson on the option’s for a while, and make up some places, but most of the drivers where on primes, so they had to bring him in earlier than expected.
Vettel was making up good time, he was in first place, making the gap between him and Alonso bigger by the lap, setting the fastest lap every lap. On lap 10 Schumi radioed to his team telling them he had a brake problem, which turned out to be the callibour getting too hot, so andrew shovolin asked Michael to tone down the bias from the front a bit.
On lap 15 the yellow flag came out because Liuzzi’s front wing end plate came off, causing the safety car to come out, which then made the teams come in for their pit stops. This, never went down so well for Force India, Mercedes and Renault. I will start off with the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg, he came into the pits, and when he left, he rear right wheel was not fastened on properly, so it came off, nearly wiping out a Sauber Mechanic, and bouncing up in the air through the pit lane, endangering the drivers and Mechanics. In the end it got caught by a Mechanic at Williams, fortunately not hurting anyone in the process. The second incident was caused by the Renault team, they released Robert Kubica a little too late, and poor Sutil was coming into his pit, and crashed into the Renault of Kubica, forcing him to retire, and Kubica had to come back for a front wing. When they had finished with him, the red light was on in the pits, so he was going to be a lap behind. For that little mishap, Kubica had a 10 second stop/go penalty, which never effected him much, as he was last and a lap later he retired due to engine failure. Also, the stewards will be putting Rosberg under investigation after the race.
The Safety car went in on Lap 15, and because of Vettel’s pit, Webber never pitted, so he was in the lead for the rest of the race. Then, Vettel had a another problem, because you are supposed to stay within ten car lengths behind the safety car, but he backed off a bit, and the FIA deemed the length between him and the safety car illegal, and the penalised him by giving him a drive through penalty. He served that penalty on lap 32.
On Lap 24, the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton had transmission and gearbox problems, so he had loss of drive on the exit of turn 2, forcing him to retire. So, moving on to Webber his tyres weren’t going to last, so they had to bring him in, but put him ahead of Alonso to stay in first, so they decided to keep Webber out to build up a 18 second lead to stay in the lead, and he did. By the time he built it up the lead, he radioed to the team to tell them to get ready, which they did, and he came in on lap 43 and he came out in front of Alonso and Vettel.
On lap 60, Webber lapped seven time world champion Michael Schumacher, and he radioed to his team saying “that feels good”.
The battle for second was heating up between Vettel and Alonso, Vettel was putting the pressure on Alonso for 8 laps, but every time he wanted to pass him, he was coming out of turbulent air and into a wall of air, which isn’t good, and on lap 54 Vettel was a bit frustrighted as he went wide on the exit of turn 5. By lap 64, Alonso had a 10 second lead over Vettel, which was constant to the end of the race.
On lap 61, the battle for 10th was heating up as well, between former teammates Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barichello, he got a run on him into turn 1, but locked up and then tried on turn 2, but Di Grassi was in the way, so it wasn’t happening for him. On lap 65, Rubens got a slip stream again alongside Michael and Michael got a bit shaky on the exit of the last turn, so he left the door wide open for him, and Rubens got by him, and Michael shoved him towards the pit straight wall nearly forcing him into it, but the wall ran out, and he evaded a big incident. Rubens got past him, but it was a dangerous move. after the race, Schumi blamed it on Rubens, and Rubens vice versa, but the stewards gave out a decision earlier on, and its Michael will be getting a 10 place penalty at the next race.
So, with that taken care of, Webber had a 15 second lead over Alonso, so it was likely he would not get past him, so on the final lap Webber drove his best and crossed the finish line to win the Hungarian GP, and also put him into the lead of the championship and also put Red Bull into the constructors.
Here is the provisional result of the race today:
1 Mark Webber
2 Fernando Alonso
3 Sebastian Vettel
4 Felipe Massa
5 Vitaly Petrov
6 Nico Hulkenberg
7 Pedro de la Rosa
8 Jenson Button
9 Kamui Kobayashi
10 Rubens Barrichello
11 Michael Schumacher
12 Sebastien Buemi
13 Vitantonio Liuzzi
14 Heikki Kovalainen
15 Jarno Trulli
16 Timo Glock
17 Bruno Senna
18 Lucas di Grassi d
19 Sakon Yamamoto
20 Lewis Hamilton
21 Robert Kubica
22 Nico Rosberg
23 Adrian Sutil
24 Jaime Alguersuari
So for the first time this season, all of the new teams cars have finished, which is progress, and with a 4 week break till Spa, Mark leaves Hungary with a 4 point lead over Hamilton.
*Update* Renault Fined $50,000 for Pit Lane Incident and Mercedes Fined $50,000 for Loose Wheel Offence.
