autoevolution
 

Hamilton Wins Shocking Hungarian GP

Lewis Hamilton scored his first win in 2009 after a dominating performance at the Hungaroring. The reigning F1 champion showcased some impressive driving on Sunday and, thanks to his massively-improved McLaren MP2-24, rallied to the Hungarian Grand Prix win some 11.5 seconds ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

Third overall was Red Bull's Mark Webber, who struggled to get his RB5 on a race-winning position all day, but couldn't keep pace with the leading duo for the majority of the race.

Unlike in Germany 2 weeks ago, pole sitter Fernando Alonso had a fault-less start in Hungary, leading Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton after the first couple of corners. The Spaniard slowly moved away from Webber in the first few laps, but saw his lead cut dramatically after Hamilton managed to pass the Aussie driver for 2nd place.

Ham started to gain more than half-of-second per lap to Alonso, until the Spaniard decided to visit the pits for refuel. That was to be his first and last "mistake" of the day, as the Renault mechanics did a poor job sending the 2-time world champion back on track in a decent condition.

Poor coordination between the mechanics saw Alonso leave the pits without his wheel nut set accordingly, which translated into a tire burst after a few corners. More, midway through his outlap, Alonso's right-front tire practically flew away from the car and into the barriers, no major incidents included.

That left Hamilton all alone in the lead, and the Brit did nothing wrong all afternoon. He started building enough of a lead from Webber and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen until the first pit stop, and rejoined the track plenty of seconds ahead of his two rivals.

Webber lost his second place after the first pit stop to Raikkonen and never got to pressure the Finn until the chequered flag. His teammate Sebastian Vettel had a horrible afternoon also, as some problems with his engine caused him to finish the race in the pits.

Brawn GP duo Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello failed to challenge for the top spots all day, as they finished on some disappointing 7th and 10th place respectively.

Williams' Nico Rosberg spent all day behind Webber and Raikkonen, but lost some important seconds during his two pit stops to finish the race in 4th place. He was followed at the chequered flag by McLaren's Heikki Kovalainen.

Toyota used a great pit strategy to get both its drivers inside the Top 8, as Glock's late second pit stop got him a well-deserved 6th place overall. Jarno Trulli had to settle for 8th place.

Rookie driver Jaime Alguersuari managed to stay out of trouble all day and finished the race in 15th place, ahead of teammate Sebastien Buemi (who made a short visit to the runoffs during his second stint.

In the overall classification, Button still leads the F1 field on 70 points, but is now followed by Webber 18.5 points behind. Vettel is 3rd overall, 4.5 points short of his Aussie teammate.
If you liked the article, please follow us:  Google News icon Google News Youtube Instagram X (Twitter)
 

Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?

You will only receive our top stories