Daniel Ricciardo took the chequered flag and his second win in Formula One at the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring after a rain shower before the start of the race spiced up the action before the race had even begun.
On the Formation Lap, Danil Kvyat in his Toro Rosso failed to leave his grid slot after the engine had no power. This then saw Kvyat join Kevin Magnussen and Lewis Hamilton start the race from the pit lane.
Pole man Rosberg lead the way through the early stages of the race from the Williams driver Valtteri Bottas who yet again another great start off the line. We then saw Bottas and Vettel battle each other for position and Bottas being able to pass Vettel for position. Further down the grid, Jenson Button is then able to pass Ricciardo for position. Fernando Alonso is then able to pass Vettel and it appears that Vettel is going backwards. But a few corners later, Vettel is able to re pass Alonso for position.
As we head into Turn 2, Hamilton spins his Mercedes near the barriers and gains some front wing damage to his left hand side. The loser at the start was Felipe Massa and he lost several places at the start of the race.
The Safety Car is deployed after Marcus Ericsson hits the barriers at Turn 3 with a significant impact. Luckily Ericsson got out of the car okay and didn’t hurt himself during the incident. But Ericsson has to retire from the race. At the end of the lap, Ricciardo, Button, Grosjean, Guiterrez and Perez pit. We even see Guiterrez and Perez continuing their battle coming out the pitlane!
Lap 10 of the race sees Romain Grosjean at Turn 3 just like Ericsson two laps before making contact with the barriers. Luckily Grosjean is okay; he walked away from the incident and retires from the Grand Prix. And the Safety Car stays out to clear the debris. By Lap 14, we are backing racing once again. Jenson Button leads the race ahead of Daniel Ricciardo by 1.1 seconds.
Luck wasn’t on the side of Nico Hulkenberg as on Lap 16, Hulkenberg spun his Force India out of the race and makes contact with the barriers. This then sees Hulkenberg officially retire from the race and ends his stint of finishing every race this season in the points.
Hulkenberg’s team mate Sergio Perez didn’t have luck on his side either seven laps later after spinning and colliding with the pit wall quite spectacularly. Perez walked away from the incident unharmed and officially retired from the race and leaves no Force India’s running in the race. This then brings out the Safety Car for the second time.
Lap 24 sees Alonso leading the race under the Safety Car. The next lap sees Kobayashi retiring from the race after stopping on the track at Turn 2 and this sees both Caterham’s out of the race. The next lap sees Vettel at the same place as Perez nearly have the same accident on the pit straight. Luckily Vettel misses the pit wall and is able to keep the car running and suffering no serious damage to his car.
Throughout the race, we saw many of the drivers battling each other throughout the field for track position and it was hard to keep up with positions changing all the time. We saw Kimi Raikkonen battling pretty much everyone he raced with today to sixth place today (the one that sticks out in my mind was the battle with himself, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas). Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen also battled with Danil Kvyat, Jean-Eric Vergne, Adrian Sutil and Valtteri Bottas to name a few in order to finish tenth and twelfth for the McLaren team.
There were a few main battles that we saw during the race. Firstly, the epic battle in the latter stages of the race between Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton (also Daniel Ricciardo too!) which ended with Alonso beating Hamilton despite his tyres degrading fast to second place and Hamilton after starting from the pit lane to get third place.
Nico Rosberg battled his way through the grid especially after his final pit stop to fourth place (even if the Mercedes team tried over team radio to get Hamilton to give way to Rosberg), Felipe Massa was a credible fifth place after battling hard with Alonso, Rosberg and Hamilton throughout the race, Sebastian Vettel after nearly losing his car on the pit straight was seventh and finally the battle between Valtteri Bottas and Jean-Eric Vergne ended with Bottas finishing in eighth ahead of Vergne in ninth place.
Adrian Sutil finished in eleventh place for Sauber and it is their best result of the season so far. Also, Sauber’s other driver Esteban Guiterrez did not have a great weekend either and was forced to retire from the Grand Prix after issues with his MG-UK (KERS system) forced him to stop running in the race.
Pastor Maldonado did not have a great weekend once again and finished the race in thirteenth place. Throughout the race, Maldonado found himself battling with the Marussia of Jules Bianchi. On Lap 17, both drivers made contact after Maldonado tries to pass Bianchi at Turn 12, left Maldonado spinning his Lotus but he was able to continue running in the race.
Danil Kvyat finished in the other Toro Rosso in fourteenth place after losing a lap after experiencing engine problems while trying to leave his grid slot for the formation lap. It would appear that Marussia once again have shown with Jules Bianchi that they are performing better than their rivals Caterham this weekend. Bianchi managed to finish the race in fifteenth place one lap down ahead of his team-mate Max Chilton in sixteenth place also a lap down.
Meanwhile, Caterham have not improved at all this weekend. With their rookie driver Marcus Ericsson spins in Practice 1 and then Kamui Kobayashi spinning in Practice 2, can things get any worse for them? Both cars retired from the race and this only highlights just how much incredible amount of work Caterham need to do in order to try and salvage something from this season if possible.
The official result of the Hungarian Grand Prix is as follows below:-
| Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull | 1hr 53mins.05.058s |
| Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 5.2s |
| Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 5.8s |
| Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 6.3s |
| Felipe Massa | Williams-Mercedes | 29.8s |
| Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 31.4s |
| Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull | 40.9s |
| Valtteri Bottas | Williams-Mercedes | 41.3s |
| Jean-Eric Vergne | Toro Rosso | 58.5s |
| Jenson Button | McLaren-Mercedes | 67.2s |
| Adrian Sutil | Sauber-Ferrari | 68.1s |
| Kevin Magnussen | McLaren-Mercedes | 78.4s |
| Pastor Maldonado | Lotus-Renault | 84.0s |
| Danil Kvyat | Toro Rosso | 1 lap |
| Jules Bianchi | Marussia-Ferrari | 1 lap |
| Max Chilton | Marussia-Ferrari | 1lap |
| Esteban Guiterrez | Sauber-Ferrari | Not Classified |
| Sergio Perez | Force India-Mercedes | Not Classified |
| Nico Hulkenberg | Force India-Mercedes | Not classified |
| Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham-Renault | Not classified |
| Romain Grosjean | Lotus-Renault | Not classified |
| Marcus Ericsson | Caterham-Renault | Not classified |
At the moment, Nico Rosberg leads the Driver’s championship with 202 points, Hamilton is second with 191 points, Ricciardo is third with 131 points, Alonso is fourth with 115 points, Bottas is fifth with 95 points, Vettel is sixth with 88 points, Hulkenberg is seventh with 69 points, Button is eighth with 60 points, Massa is ninth with 40 points and Magnussen is tenth with 37 points.
Currently, Mercedes leads the Constructor’s championship with 393 points, Red Bull is second with 219 points, Ferrari is third with 142 points, Williams is fourth with 135 points, Force India is fifth with 98 points, McLaren is sixth with 97 points, Toro Rosso are seventh with 15 points, Lotus are eighth with 8 points and Marussia are ninth with 2 points.
What a race we have watched and witnessed today! Hungary over the past few years have given us memorable races such as 2006 and 2011 and today has to be added to that. You couldn’t keep your eyes off the screen for a moment, we were rewarded with one of the best races of the season so far and it is a race that will be talked about many times over and over again by fans of the sport.
With Formula One now entering the summer break before we head to Spa in three weeks time, will we see Rosberg continuing to keep on with the momentum he has achieved over the past races and extend his championship lead once again? Or can Hamilton put up a challenge at a track during the second half of the season and regain the championship lead from his team mate? Bring on Spa!
