The drivers were at the Hungaroring in Budapest this weekend for the Hungarian Grand Prix. It was the penultimate round before the sport’s month-long summer break. The weekend provided a bit of confusion, largely due to the poor weather that hit the circuit on Saturday.
Friday got off to a bit of damp start, with early morning showers soaking the track. The track conditions improved quickly and teams were able to use the slick tyres. Lewis Hamilton led the way in the first free practice, with a fastest lap over 0.2 seconds quicker than his teammate. The two Ferrari drivers were the next fastest, but the Red Bulls were not much slower and were able to prove that their performance was a serious threat to Ferrari in Hungary. The first session gave a chance for the drivers to explore the grip of the newly resurfaced circuit, but many of them pushed a little too hard and ended up spinning. Hamilton’s luck changed in the second session of the weekend, as a spin after four laps damaged the car. Mercedes retired the car from the session, leaving Nico Rosberg to top the time charts in the session. Vettel complained of gearbox issues that may have hampered his times. Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz both got reprimanded for pit lane violations. Drivers continued to push the grip limits, also running wide many times throughout the session.
Red Bull showed their great pace during the final practice session on Saturday. Rosberg was able to top the session by the narrowest of margins; only 0.002 seconds separated him from Max Verstappen. Hamilton had issues with his race seat, while also running wide multiple times throughout the session. This only allowed him to rank fourth fastest for the session; behind the Red Bulls. Many drivers continued to run wide in certain corners, leading the race director to warn teams that track limits violations will lead to invalidated lap times in qualifying. Rain in the afternoon turned qualifying into chaos. The session was started in the rain and later red flagged to allow the conditions to improve. The session was started, but then red flagged again for the conditions. When the session was resumed, Marcus Ericsson spun in turn 10 and brought out another red flag. The track began to dry when the sun came out, but there was another red flag for Felipe Massa’s heavy crash. In total, the whole qualifying proceedings lasted roughly two hours and resulted in Rosberg narrowly taking the pole position from Hamilton, who had lost time on his hot lap due to Fernando Alonso’s spin that brought out the yellow flags. Hours after the session had concluded, the stewards were busy with an investigation into Rosberg’s alleged violation of the yellow flags for Alonso on his pole lap and many drivers also faced losing their top ten positions for failing the 107% rule. Nearly five hours after qualifying had ended, the stewards released the official starting grid, revealing that they had issued no penalties to any drivers.
Sunday started with some issues in the garage for Felipe Massa, as the team rushed to replace the steering rack on his car. At the start, Hamilton got a good start and was able to overtake his teammate. Daniel Ricciardo made a move around the outside of the first corner, but he couldn’t make it stick and the Mercedes drivers were able to retake the lead in turn two. Hydraulic pressure issues gave Jenson Button some troubles only a few laps into the race, but he stayed out on the track while the team worked on a fix. The team was placed under investigation for unauthorized radio communications, which led to a drive through penalty. The front Mercedes drivers were able to form a comfortable gap from the Red Bulls behind. In the first round of pit stops, Daniel Ricciardo was able to remain in front of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari, but he didn’t get in front of Valtteri Bottas. Max Verstappen lost out on the pit stops, as Sebastian Vettel was able to leap frog him, although Bottas slowed down the cars slightly and allowed Verstappen to make up some ground. To make things worse for him, Kimi Räikkönen was in front of Verstappen, giving him another obstacle to overtake before getting into the battle with his teammate and the other Ferrari. Rosberg was able to close the gap to his teammate, providing him with a serious threat. Hamilton responded to the decreasing gap and pulled two seconds ahead, but Mercedes were still a little frustrated, as Rosberg was slowly being backed into Ricciardo, making him vulnerable for the undercut. Ricciardo pitted while Mercedes was stuck in traffic, but Mercedes didn’t respond to the potential undercut. When they did pit, Mercedes maintained the lead, leaving Ricciardo to run a lot of laps on the soft compound tyre. A spin on lap 50 put Jolyon Palmer out of the points. Sebastian Vettel closed the gap to Ricciardo and Räikkönen to Verstappen, but neither of the Ferrari drivers were able to overtake their Red Bull rivals. Lewis Hamilton took the race victory, leading the way in a Mercedes 1-2 finish.
With a race victory, Hamilton takes the World Drivers’ Championship lead away from his teammate. Next, the drivers head off to the Hockenheimring for the German Grand Prix for the final race before the month-long summer break. This is first German Grand Prix since 2014, since the event was cancelled in 2015 due to the Nürburgring’s financial situation.
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