Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel scored a marvellous and not-a-little surprising win in an incident packed, fast, furious and absorbing Grand Prix in Hungary.
Accelerating past championship leader Lewis Hamilton and his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg at the first corner, Vettel clung onto the lead thereafter and was followed home by the Red Bulls of Daniil Kvyat, taking his debut podium, and Daniel Ricciardo.
For Mercedes it was a very tough day at the office. Hamilton’s afternoon went from a poor start to a fantastic recovery drive and ended in what turned out to be a better-than-expected sixth, while his team-mate Nico Rosberg, who was in third and then second for much of the race, ended up behind his team-mate in eighth.
Ferrari duo Vettel and Raikonnen made a fantastic start as they jumped into the top two spots, after Mercedes failed to get off the line swiftly, just as they had at the last round at Silverstone. Thereafter they came back but could not quite catch Vettel, who set the pace of the field.
Vettel dedicated his win to Jules Bianchi as did the other drivers on the podium. There was minute's silence before the race in honour of the driver who died last week, as a result of injuries sustained in an accident at Suzuka last year.
“This victory is for Jules,” said Vettel. “It’s been an incredibly tough week. This one is for him. You are always in our hearts, sooner or later we know you would have been in this team.”
Kvyat also paid tribute to the late Frenchman on the podium, stating: “It’s been a tough year . . . I think as a team we deserved this podium. It’s first for Jules and for his family.” Ricciardo said he “left it all on the track” and “that’s the way Jules would have wanted it, I owe this to him.”
Bernie Ecclestone had flown Bianchi’s family in on a private jet from Nice to attend the race at which a sombre air has prevailed as the sport comes to terms with the first on-track driver fatality since 1994. The drivers stood in a circle on the grid with the Frenchman’s family in what was a highly emotive moment of remembrance.
Hamilton, who was struggling to make up ground after the start, locked-up on lap two and went wide onto the gravel at turn six, dropping back to 10th, but complained that Rosberg crossing his line had caused the incident, moving twice to block his move. By lap six he was almost 20 seconds behind the leaders.
Vettel looked comfortable at this point with neither Raikonnen nor Rosberg able to catch him, but a late safety car period bunched up the leaders. On an afternoon peppered by penalties, Hamilton had a terrible restart, suffering a lack of grip and understeer and took a contact defending from Ricciardo at the first corner, damaging his front wing, for which he duly received a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to 12th.
It left Ricciardo on a charge on the soft tyres chasing Rosberg down when the pair clashed on lap 63 – Rosberg took a left rear-puncture dropping him down the field and Ricciardo needed a new front wing, elevating Kvyat to second and dropping Rosberg to eighth.
Raikonnen, who had also looked strong in second for much of the race, had to retire with an energy recovery system failure. The Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen was fourth, with the unusually mixed-up field also benefiting McLaren with Fernando Alonso in fifth and Jenson Button in ninth. Romain Grosjean in seventh and Marcus Ericsson rounded out the top 10.
(Guardian service)
