Despite the uncertainty of McLaren's future, Lewis Hamilton remained focused in his racing by winning the Hungarian GP to extend his lead in the championship standings
Lewis Hamilton shrugged off all the controversy that transpired on and off the track the past two weeks to notch his third victory in only 11 attempts. The win was anything but easy however, as the Brit had to soak up pressure from Ferrari’s Kimi Raikonnen especially during the final stint of the race. By the time the checkered flags waved, the margin of victory was just 0.7s.
Raikkonen, despite narrowly missing the victory, should still be satisfied with the result. His Ferrari, just like in Monaco, didn’t seem to have the quickness over a single lap in the tight nature of Hungaroring and thus wasn’t in the running for pole position during qualifying. However, unlike Monaco, The Ferrari at least had the race pace to be in contention for the victory. And with a good start that saw Raikkonen jump from 3rd to 2nd, the odds looked good for the Ferrari driver. Unfortunately for the Finn, the characteristics of the track make overtaking very difficult lest of course the driver ahead makes a mistake. Lewis Hamilton however drove an error free race.
Nick Heidfeld had a superb drive to take the last spot on the podium fending off Fernando Alonso during the closing stages of the race. The German gambled on a three pit-stop strategy since the BMW Sauber seemed to have problems preserving the soft option tire. Hence, a third stop was necessary to reduce the number of laps needed to run the softer compound tire.
Fernando Alonso had to settle for fourth place. The Spaniard’s chances to win the race had been compromised after qualifying when his pole position was stripped by the stewards. It was deemed that his unusually long pit-stop during Q3 impeded his teammate to make another flying lap. Thus the reigning champion was dropped to sixth on the grid. To make matters worse, Alonso didn’t have the best of starts relinquishing a couple of places in the opening stages of the race. From there on, it was a matter of damage limitation. Alonso’s result means that Hamilton extended a two point advantage to seven points with six races remaining.
If Alonso’s day was bad, Felipe Massa had a race to forget. The Brazilian, who had been a championship contender since the beginning of the season, scored no points finishing 13th place. Massa’s chances had also been compromised the day before when he became a victim of one of the most unusual errors from his pit crew during Q2 after the team forgot to refuel his car. The Ferrari started stalling just before the pit exit and had to be pushed all the way back to the Ferrari garage. By the time the car was refueled, the tires had become cold thus hindering the Brazilian to make a competitive qualifying run. As a result, Massa started down at 14th place. And like Alonso, the Brazilian also had a bad start and never had a real chance of making up places. The result has dropped Massa to fourth place in the championship standings.
Robert Kubica finished fifth place while Ralph Schumacher awarded the Toyota team its best finish for the season by crossing the line in sixth place. Nico Rosberg was seventh for Williams while Heikki Kovalainen finished eighth for Renault. Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Toyata’s Jarno Trulli rounded up the top ten finishing ninth and tenth respectively.
