Race – Vettel wins as Ferrari prove unstoppable in Hungary
Race – Vettel wins as Ferrari prove unstoppable in Hungary
RACE RESULTS
On a day when the Silver Arrows had no reaction to the Scuderia, despite Vettel complaining of steering issues, Valtteri Bottas took third ahead of Hamilton, just in front of a recovering Max Verstappen, who had been penalised ten seconds for taking his Crimson Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo out of the race on the opening lap.
Fernando Alonso secured his and McLaren’s best result of the year in sixth, winning a race-long battle with fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso.
Force India again got both cars in the points, with Sergio Perez hammering team mate Esteban Ocon to eighth place, whilst Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top ten in the 2nd McLaren.
Vettel and Raikkonen finished less than a 2nd apart after seventy laps of the Hungaroring, but the reds certainly had to work much stiffer that they anticipated for their forty three points.
In the opening stages they were very much in guideline, as Vettel sprinted away and took Raikkonen with him, and Hamilton dropped behind team mate Bottas and Verstappen at the begin.
But step by step Raikkonen began to erode Vettel’s lead as the German embarked complaining of a steering problem, and when Hamilton’s car came alive on the soft Pirelli tyres in the 2nd stint, Mercedes asked Bottas to let the Briton by.
Then we had a real race, as Hamilton began clawing back ground lost partly because Ferrari were generally quicker, partly because of his indifferent commence, and partly because a radio communication problem had seen Mercedes bring him in sooner to switch from the supersoft tyres to the softs than he thought necessary.
Bit by bit he pulled Raikkonen in, as the Finn angrily declaimed to Ferrari that he didn’t want to have to deal with pressure from Mercedes when it would be lighter to get Vettel to stir over. He was told that Vettel had been instructed to speed up and to go with him. Meantime, Hamilton was given five laps – then ten – in which he could use his engine’s overtake function, and was putting them under big pressure. In a plucky charge he got the gap to Vettel down to 1.7s on the 54th lap, but as is so often the case at the Hungaroring, a following car just couldn’t fairly gather the rhythm to overtake.
Little by little he dropped away, as Bottas kept pushing hard in the closing stages to keep a menacing Verstappen at bay. The Dutchman had ran fourth and moved up into the lead when Raikkonen, the last of the leaders to stop, pitted on the 34th lap. He stayed out until the 42nd lap, but had to serve his 10s penalty during his stop for thrusting team mate Ricciardo into retirement in Turn two on the opening lap. Now, on newer tyres, he was coming back rapid at the 2nd Mercedes.
In the end, Hamilton and Mercedes honoured their promise to Bottas to restore his podium slot in the event that Hamilton could not pass the Ferraris, so as Vettel won by 0.9s, Bottas ended up a further 11.5s adrift, with Hamilton 0.4s behind and Verstappen another 0.4s down.
The result puts Vettel further ahead again in the title pursue with two hundred two points to Hamilton’s one hundred eighty eight and Bottas’s 169, while Raikkonen closes on Ricciardo’s one hundred seventeen with 116.
McLaren ultimately moved out of last place in the constructors’ table, with Fernando Alonso completing an excellent sixth – and remarkably setting the fastest lap of the race on the 69th tour – and Vandoorne surviving for 10th after a near-miss with the spinning Ricciardo on the opening lap, then a delay during his pit stop. They now have eleven points to Sauber’s five.
In inbetween the McLarens, a brilliant begin brought Sainz seventh place for Toro Rosso, ahead of identically fast-starting Perez, who had a brush with team mate Ocon at the embark and finished only a 2nd ahead, as Ocon in turn was just half a 2nd ahead of Vandoorne at the end.
Daniil Kvyat was 11th in the other Toro Rosso, four-tenths ahead of Jolyon Palmer who had run 10th early on before being instructed to let quicker Renault team mate Nico Hulkenberg by. The German was fighting for points when he was eased off-track in Turn two by Kevin Magnussen (who received a five 2nd penalty as a result), but his R.S.17 malfunctioned right near the end and he was instructed to retire.
That left Magnussen 13th from Lance Stroll who was Williams’ foot finisher after the returning Paul di Resta drove a slick and incident-free race battling with the Saubers until he too was told to stop near the end due to an oil leak.
Pascal Wehrlein hit Sauber team mate Marcus Ericsson for 16th, as Romain Grosjean joined Hulkenberg, di Resta and Ricciardo in retirement when an improperly fastened wheel obliged Haas to tell him to stop. The team were subsequently fined €5,000 for releasing the car in an unsafe condition.
Race – Vettel wins as Ferrari prove unstoppable in Hungary
Race – Vettel wins as Ferrari prove unstoppable in Hungary
RACE RESULTS
On a day when the Silver Arrows had no reaction to the Scuderia, despite Vettel complaining of steering issues, Valtteri Bottas took third ahead of Hamilton, just in front of a recovering Max Verstappen, who had been penalised ten seconds for taking his Crimson Bull team mate Daniel Ricciardo out of the race on the opening lap.
Fernando Alonso secured his and McLaren’s best result of the year in sixth, winning a race-long battle with fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso.
Force India again got both cars in the points, with Sergio Perez hitting team mate Esteban Ocon to eighth place, whilst Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top ten in the 2nd McLaren.
Vettel and Raikkonen finished less than a 2nd apart after seventy laps of the Hungaroring, but the reds certainly had to work much stiffer that they anticipated for their forty three points.
In the opening stages they were very much in instruction, as Vettel sprinted away and took Raikkonen with him, and Hamilton dropped behind team mate Bottas and Verstappen at the embark.
But step by step Raikkonen began to erode Vettel’s lead as the German commenced complaining of a steering problem, and when Hamilton’s car came alive on the soft Pirelli tyres in the 2nd stint, Mercedes asked Bottas to let the Briton by.
Then we had a real race, as Hamilton began clawing back ground lost partly because Ferrari were generally quicker, partly because of his indifferent begin, and partly because a radio communication problem had seen Mercedes bring him in sooner to switch from the supersoft tyres to the softs than he thought necessary.
Bit by bit he pulled Raikkonen in, as the Finn angrily declaimed to Ferrari that he didn’t want to have to deal with pressure from Mercedes when it would be lighter to get Vettel to budge over. He was told that Vettel had been instructed to speed up and to go with him. Meantime, Hamilton was given five laps – then ten – in which he could use his engine’s overtake function, and was putting them under big pressure. In a courageous charge he got the gap to Vettel down to 1.7s on the 54th lap, but as is so often the case at the Hungaroring, a following car just couldn’t fairly gather the rhythm to overtake.
Step by step he dropped away, as Bottas kept pushing hard in the closing stages to keep a menacing Verstappen at bay. The Dutchman had ran fourth and moved up into the lead when Raikkonen, the last of the leaders to stop, pitted on the 34th lap. He stayed out until the 42nd lap, but had to serve his 10s penalty during his stop for thrusting team mate Ricciardo into retirement in Turn two on the opening lap. Now, on newer tyres, he was coming back quick at the 2nd Mercedes.
In the end, Hamilton and Mercedes honoured their promise to Bottas to restore his podium slot in the event that Hamilton could not pass the Ferraris, so as Vettel won by 0.9s, Bottas ended up a further 11.5s adrift, with Hamilton 0.4s behind and Verstappen another 0.4s down.
The result puts Vettel further ahead again in the title pursue with two hundred two points to Hamilton’s one hundred eighty eight and Bottas’s 169, while Raikkonen closes on Ricciardo’s one hundred seventeen with 116.
McLaren ultimately moved out of last place in the constructors’ table, with Fernando Alonso completing an excellent sixth – and remarkably setting the fastest lap of the race on the 69th tour – and Vandoorne surviving for 10th after a near-miss with the spinning Ricciardo on the opening lap, then a delay during his pit stop. They now have eleven points to Sauber’s five.
In inbetween the McLarens, a brilliant begin brought Sainz seventh place for Toro Rosso, ahead of identically fast-starting Perez, who had a brush with team mate Ocon at the embark and finished only a 2nd ahead, as Ocon in turn was just half a 2nd ahead of Vandoorne at the end.
Daniil Kvyat was 11th in the other Toro Rosso, four-tenths ahead of Jolyon Palmer who had run 10th early on before being instructed to let quicker Renault team mate Nico Hulkenberg by. The German was fighting for points when he was eased off-track in Turn two by Kevin Magnussen (who received a five 2nd penalty as a result), but his R.S.17 malfunctioned right near the end and he was instructed to retire.
That left Magnussen 13th from Lance Stroll who was Williams’ foot finisher after the returning Paul di Resta drove a sleek and incident-free race battling with the Saubers until he too was told to stop near the end due to an oil leak.
Pascal Wehrlein hit Sauber team mate Marcus Ericsson for 16th, as Romain Grosjean joined Hulkenberg, di Resta and Ricciardo in retirement when an improperly fastened wheel obliged Haas to tell him to stop. The team were subsequently fined €5,000 for releasing the car in an unsafe condition.
