Jul 12
30
It may not have been a race to remember but it was a master class from Lewis Hamilton in how to push and use your brain at the same time, which shows how far he has come this season.
Hamilton was quickest in all three qualifying sessions on Saturday and kept his cool on race day despite being under pressure from both Lotus cars, who finally delivered their promised pace this weekend.
Romain Grosjean started the race right alongside Hamilton on the front row in a career best P2, while his team mate, ex-world champion Kimi Raikkonen, lined up in P5.
However by the end of the race it was Raikkonen who was bringing the fight to Hamilton, although he never found the pace to make a move on the Brit. The Lotus teams will still be very happy with their results this weekend, as both drivers ended up finishing in P2 and P3.
Even with DRS, overtaking was minimal this weekend, by my count there were less than 20 actual on-track passes, meaning most of the position changes happened thanks to pit stops. The Hungaroring is traditionally known as one of the tracks where it is challenging to overtake, but even by that standard this was a low number of passes.
This made pit stop planning even more critical, and Jenson Button was an example of what a badly timed pit can do to a race. The McLaren driver began the race in P4 and managed to jump Vettel to P3 at turn four, right at the start of the race. However reacting to pressure from the Red Bull, the team pulled Button in for a pit stop on lap 35, in the hope of shaking off Vettel and jumping him during the stops. Unfortunately despite a break-neck tyre change of 2.9 seconds, Jenson fed out the pit lane right behind the Williams of Bruno Senna and was stuck there.
This freed up current world champion Vettel to run in clear air and post some blistering lap times, so when he pitted four laps later he came out in front of Button. Thanks to being stuck behind Senna, any hope of Button finishing on the podium was lost and he finished the race in sixth place.
It must be said that Senna was under no obligation to let the Brit pass. At the time he was racing for position and more, for speculation is rife that the nephew of the late great Ayrton Senna is competing for his Williams seat next season after some disappointing results. He has failed to bring home any points in five of the 11 races so far this year.
Both the Williams cars started the race in the top 10 this weekend however, and Senna managed to cross the finish line in P7. His team mate Pastor Maldonado had a less successful race as in his now traditional
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