Lewis Hamilton extended his Formula 1 championship lead with victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Sebastian Vettel finished second despite contact in a late race battle with Valtteri Bottas.
Polesitter Hamilton’s 17-second winning margin was made more comfortable as a result of a slow pitstop from Vettel which defined his race.
His Ferrari mechanics were slow to fit the right-front tyre, losing two seconds in the pitstop and causing Vettel – who started on the soft compound tyre and completed a longer first stint – to emerge behind Bottas in third place.
Bottas, who had pitted for soft tyres on lap 15 of 70, struggled for grip in the final stages. With five laps remaining, Vettel out-dragged Bottas in the run to Turn 2. The Mercedes driver locked-up and made contact with the back of Vettel’s car.
Avoiding a puncture, Vettel was able to finish second ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who passed Bottas while he recovered from the collision.
Raikkonen was the only driver in the lead group to complete a two-stop race and was able to catch the Bottas-Vettel dice at a rate of 1.5 seconds per lap in the closing stages.
Daniel Ricciardo ended up in fourth place. Starting 12th on the grid, Ricciardo made wheel-to-wheel contact in a squeeze with Marcus Ericsson at Turn 1, falling to 16th by the end of the opening lap.
Scything his way through the field and making his one and only pitstop late-on, he was able to catch the limping Bottas with three laps to go.
Attempting to pass around the outside at Turn 1, Bottas understeered into the side of Ricciardo’s Red Bull causing bargeboard damage. Ricciardo recovered and made the overtake on Bottas with a cut-back manoeuvre at Turn 1 on the final lap.
Ricciardo’s team-mate Max Verstappen retired from the race on lap six after an engine failure. He had climbed from seventh on the grid to fifth on the opening lap and was running behind the Mercedes’ and Ferraris.
Behind Bottas in fifth, Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly finished in sixth place. Maintaining a comfortable margin over Haas’s Kevin Magnussen throughout the race, he was the only driver outside of the top three teams not to be lapped by race winner Hamilton.
McLaren’s Fernando Alonso finished eighth after jumping several cars by making his one and only pitstop in the second half of the race after starting on the durable soft tyre.
His team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne was on course to secure ninth before a suspected gearbox issue forced him into retirement in the final third of the race.
Renault’s Carlos Sainz Jr was ninth ahead of Romain Grosjean. Both were jumped by Alonso in the pitstop phase.
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