Vettel back to winning ways
German drives Ferrari to 1-2 finish, increases lead over Hamilton to 14 points
Sebastian Vettel won a tense Hungarian Grand Prix yesterday in a Ferrari one-two that stretched his championship lead to 14 points after Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton sportingly surrendered third place to his teammate.
The German, savouring his fourth win of the season and 46th of his Formula One career, took the chequered flag 0.9 seconds ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen.
The Finn had looked faster than Vettel, who clinched his first win in five races since the Monaco Grand Prix, for most of the afternoon.
"I'm over the moon, that was a really difficult race," said Vettel, who had to wrestle with a skewed steering wheel on a sweltering afternoon at the Hungaroring and had no room for error.
Hamilton finished fourth after slowing down on the last lap and allowing Finnish teammate Valtteri Bottas to go past, despite the loss of vital points to the Briton's championship challenge.
Bottas had let Hamilton through on the 45th of the 70 laps, on the assurance that his teammate would hand back the place if he could not overtake the Ferraris, and the triple champion duly kept his word.
"Really thanks to Lewis for keeping the promise in the end and letting me by," said Bottas. "I don't think every teammate would have swopped back."
Hamilton, whose radio was malfunctioning for some of the race and would have had more of a chance had he got past Bottas earlier, said he had done what he had to do.
"It's tough in the championship but I'm a man of my word," he said. "I did say that if I can't overtake them I would let him back through."
-
RESULTS (TOP 5)
RESULTS (TOP 5)1 Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 1:39:46.713
2 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) +00:00.908
3 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 00:12.462
4 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes )00:12.885
5 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 00:13.276
-
1 Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 202 points
2 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) 188
3 Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes) 169
4 Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 117
5 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 116
-
1 Mercedes - 357 points
2 Ferrari - 318
3 Red Bull - 184
TOUGH TO OVERTAKE
On a circuit where overtaking is notoriously hard, the top five all finished in their starting order with Max Verstappen fifth for Red Bull.
The Dutch teenager was handed a 10-second stop-and- go penalty for colliding with his Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap.
The impact ended Ricciardo's race, with the car stranded on the track and fluid leaking from the broken radiator, and brought out the safety car.
"It's not on. It was amateur to say the least. It's not like he was trying to pass - there was no room to pass," said an angry Ricciardo.
"I don't think he likes it when a teammate gets in front. You've got the whole race to try and repair the mistake but the pass was never on. It wasn't even a pass, it was a very poor mistake."
Fernando Alonso, who celebrated his 36th birthday on Saturday, gave struggling McLaren their best finish of the season so far by taking sixth place and also setting the fastest lap of the race.
Belgian teammate Stoffel Vandoorne was 10th in a double points finish for the former champions, who moved off the bottom of the table and ahead of Sauber.
The last Ferrari driver to win from pole position in Hungary was Vettel's compatriot Michael Schumacher, who was dominant in 2004 and went on to win his seventh and last championship that season.
Hungary was the last race before the August break, with nine of the 21 rounds remaining. - REUTERS
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now