Reuters
Budapest, July 26: Germany’s Sebastian Vettel won an emotional Hungarian Grand Prix for Ferrari and the late Jules Bianchi here Sunday after a crazy race that turned into a rare nightmare for champions Mercedes despite Lewis Hamilton increasing his overall lead.
While Vettel celebrated his second win of the season, only days after the funeral of the team’s former French test driver Bianchi, Mercedes’ double World Champion Hamilton finished sixth after starting from pole.
That setback was still enough for the Briton to increase his championship lead to 21 points over teammate Nico Rosberg, who collided with Australian Daniel Ricciardo while fighting to defend second place and ended up eighth.
Russian Daniil Kvyat took second instead for Red Bull – his first F1 podium appearance – with teammate Ricciardo following home in third after banging into both Mercedes on a battling afternoon. Dutch 17-year-old Max Verstappen was fourth for Toro Rosso.
Vettel dedicated his win to Bianchi. Speaking in French for the watching family, he said: “We know sooner or later Jules would have been a part of this team.”
Hamilton’s run of 16 podiums in a row, and 18 successive races with at least one lap led, came to an abrupt and unexpected end. The double World Champion went from runaway favourite to scrapping for a point after being handed a drive-through penalty for causing a collision with Ricciardo.
“Today (Sunday) was weird. Do I deserve any points? I didn’t give up and drove as hard as I could,” said Hamilton. “To come away from one of the worst performances I’ve put in a long, long time… it shows we are human. I was all over the place. I don’t have any words to explain what happened. It was a really bad performance from myself.”
The race took an unexpected and sensational twist right from the off as Vettel made a stunning start to seize the lead. With Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen following through to slot into second place, Hamilton and Rosberg were caught napping.
Vettel looked comfortable until the safety car again ripped up the script, deployed after Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India shed a front wing and left an explosion of debris across the Hungaroring track before slamming into the tyre
barrier.
That left the leaders tightly bunched again but Hamilton, by then up to fourth, collided with Ricciardo after the re-start and dropped down to 13th. After the drive-through penalty, he was 15th.
On a day of surprises, McLaren’s miserable season suddenly looked brighter with Fernando Alonso fifth and Jenson Button ninth – their first double points finish of the year and new Honda partnership.