Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton has emerged triumphant at the Hungarian Grand Prix, his fifth title at the Hungaroring track.
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Having faced a 43 point margin to Rosberg as recently as the Monaco Grand Prix – round six of the 2016 season -, Hamilton came to round eleven in Hungary having already whittled the deficit down to just a single point courtesy of four wins in five races.
Even if he were stripped of it, with Hamilton second Mercedes would still be guaranteed their 46th pole from the last 49 races, with the German outfit starting all but one round this year from the front.
Hamilton, who is bidding to win a record-breaking fifth time here, added: “Nico only lost a 10th of a second through the corner so if that’s really what we’re allowed to do in future on double yellows, we can approach it differently, but I’m not sure that’s the safest approach”.
The world champion confessed: “I grew up watching Michael so to have a similar number, and now one more than he had here, is incredible”, said Hamilton. I had one of the Red Bulls on the inside so I was pressured quite a lot into turn one.
Hamilton outpaced pole-sitter Rosberg at the start and then controlled the 70 laps with a mixture of speed and flawless judgement in sweltering heat at the Hungaroring circuit.
The other Red Bull just held off the other Ferrari by 0.4s, despite Kimi Raikkonen’s best efforts to get past Max Verstappen that included contact at T2 toward the end of the race.
“Once I’ve gone into the lead, I just manage my tires, my auto and manage the gap and react only when I needed to”, the two-time defending champion said.
Rosberg and team boss Toto Wolff said he had lifted off the throttle and driven slower through that section of track than on his previous laps.
“It’s very close. Up till now it was a good battle with Lewis”.
Mercedes noticed the shrinking lead and told Hamilton to “push”, or they would have Rosberg change tires ahead of him. There was one moment I think in the whole race where I thought “great I haven’t made any mistakes” and then one moment I had a lock-up, ran wide and then Nico was all of a sudden on my tail.
And so it proved to be, as Button spent most of the race at the back before he retired with only a handful of laps remaining.
The race seemed uneventful after lively practice sessions – including a crash by Hamilton – and lengthy qualifying on Saturday, interrupted several times by heavy rainfall and numerous crashes along with controversy over Rosberg’s alleged failure to slow under yellow flags.
Button started eighth but soon developed hydraulic problems.
Later, due to a controversial clampdown on the sport’s radio rules, he was subsequently handed a drive-through penalty by the stewards. He was instructed to avoid shifting gears, which meant he should have returned to the pit lane, but the auto seemed to recover and he was told to stay out on the track.
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The next race is the German Grand Prix on July 31, followed by the traditional summer break and then the Belgian Grand Prix on August 28.
