Lewis Hamilton has expressed his delight at securing a timely fifth win of the 2016 Formula 1 World Championship season in the Hungarian Grand Prix as he nosed ahead of Nico Rosberg in the overall standings for the first time this season.
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Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo briefly threatened Hamilton and second-placed Rosberg only for his challenge to fade.
For Rosberg, he is now in prime position to wrestle the championship momentum back from Hamilton after seeing his title lead slashed from 43 points to just one in the space of five races.
Teammate Lewis Hamilton was unhurt after crashing sideways into a barrier of rubber tires, Mercedes said.
“The start was everything in the race, I was pressured into turn one but the team did a fantastic job with the strategy”, said Hamilton. “This is a great result for the team”.
Starting from P2, Hamilton managed to get a better getaway than Rosberg and was able to put the German driver under pressure into the first braking zone.
There were doubts about whether Rosberg would be allowed to keep pole after onboard replays showed him also encountering yellow flags but the 31-year-old said he’d lifted off the throttle in that section of the track. That was it really.
“If there happened to be a vehicle that was spun or a marshal on the track, it would have been pretty hard for him to have slowed down in that case, so that’s why. and the fact that he didn’t get penalised for it means that we need to be careful because the message we’re sending not only to the drivers here but also to the drivers in the lower categories is that it’s now possible for you to lose only one tenth of a second in a double waved yellow flag section which is the most unsafe – one of the most risky scenarios with the double yellow flags”. “I’m disappointed because I couldn’t get past him. For sure the smile is back”, Ricciardo noted. I wasn’t backing Nico up, and if he was quick enough he could have closed the gap if he’d wanted to. It is three years in a row I have been on the podium at this circuit.
Lewis Hamilton has insisted he always had the Hungarian GP under control, telling Sky Sports F1: “I knew what l was doing”.
“Thanks to everyone and thanks to the team”.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and the second Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen rounded out the top six, equally close at the end. Raikkonen, who ended the race sixth, would later state that Verstappen wasn’t right to defend as aggressively as he did – with the pair even coming into contact on Lap 47, resulting in front wing damage for the Ferrari.
“I have seen people penalised for much less, but it is not my decision”, Raikkonen remarked post-race.
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.
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.
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Jenson Button was the only retiree, putting an end to a miserable race 10 laps early.
