Lewis Hamilton won the Hungary grand prix this afternoon and took the championship lead from Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg who came second.
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New Formula One world championship leader Lewis Hamilton felt the Spanish Grand Prix was a turning point for him this season.
Heading into next week’s German Grand Prix, Hamilton leads Rosberg by 6 points while Ricciardo sits third some 71 points behind.
Mansell, who had moved from Williams to Ferrari at the beginning of the year, started the race from 12th position on the grid and by the end of the first lap he had moved up to eighth thanks to his fearless driving style. The victory also enabled Hamilton to move ahead of his team-mate for the first time this season.
Hamilton was concerned because Rosberg kept pole despite posting the best time in sector two where there had been an incident requiring double-waved yellow flags. And so it proved. I wasn’t backing Nico up, and if he was quick enough he could have closed the gap if he’d wanted to.
Instead, Hamilton and Rosberg were able to lap as fast as and often faster than the Red Bull despite tyres that were 20 laps older. “The risk is we’re putting the win in jeopardy”.
Hamilton has won five of the last six races though Rosberg is sure the momentum will soon revert to him.
There was another good battle for third place between Red Bull Racing’s Danial Ricciardo and Ferrari’s [NYSE:RACE] Sebastian Vettel.
Jolyon Palmer missed out on an opportunity to score the first points of his F1 career when he spun at Turn 4 on lap 49 while running in tenth place.
Behind the Mercedes, Red Bulls and Ferraris, Fernando Alonso turned his top ten start in the McLaren in to a seventh place finish, but Button’s top ten start turned in to a nightmare as a hydraulic failure on his vehicle left him battling at the back before eventually retiring in the closing stages.
He was told to continue which prompted a rather sarcastic reply from the 2009 world champion.
“Fantastic”, said Button over the radio.
By lap 15, Hamilton was 2.5 seconds clear and the two Silver Arrows were striding away.
As mentioned above, Hamilton’s win helps him take the championship lead. The team did a fantastic job with the strategy. The team identified a hydraulic issue on his auto and told Button not to change gear – a radio call that resulted in a drive-through penalty for breaching team radio restrictions.
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“Toward the end I started to run out of tires and I had a few issues with the brakes”.
