Ferrari one-two in Hungary points to tight race this season

Two Reds. Too fast. Too good. That sums up Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring Racing Circuit in Budapest as Ferraris dominated to take a well deserved one-two finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Each of the four drivers at the top of the grid made a clean start and as is becoming the norm, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who started fifth made an attempt to overtake Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valterri Bottas by sweeping the outside of turn one.

His valiant effort almost yielded fruit but following some defending from Bottas, Verstappen found himself off the track and just when he thought he had got back on track, locked his wheel into turn two, in the process hitting his teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, ending the Australian’s race on the first lap for the first time in his career.

The safety car was deployed because of Ricciardo’s car. It came in on the fifth lap and Verstappen was immediately put under pressure by Hamilton, some brave defending keeping the Briton at bay.

Two laps later, the stewards settled on a 10-second penalty for Verstappen for causing the collision with Ricciardo. This provided some relief for Mercedes as it meant Hamilton did not have to overtake the Dutchman in order to finish fourth.

Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, in clean air all this time, then started setting a series of fastest laps. So commanding was his lead that by the 12th lap, he was already 11 seconds ahead of Hamilton.

Mercedes was having trouble communicating to its drivers, the radio system choosing the worst of times to experience gremlins, given that Hamilton and Bottas needed to hear every strategic detail that would hopefully enable them to supplant the Ferraris.

Vettel’s teammate, Kimi Raikkonen did a descent job of keeping the four-time champion accountable, just three seconds behind the race leader on the eighteenth lap. Two laps later, Vettel was cruising and 13 seconds ahead of fifth-placed Hamilton.

It is the nature of the Hungarian Grand Prix to give little opportunity for overtaking and so it proved. All the 19 cars were racing at an interval of more than one second each which meant that no one was about to overtake another.

On the 26th lap, Raikkonen was 1.8 seconds behind Vettel, raising temperatures at the Ferrari paddock that the Finn could put the German’s championship lead in jeopardy if he managed to pass the lead car. Vettel started lapping the backmarkers on the 29th lap.

A lap later, Bottas made a pit-stop which didn’t go too well, the Finn fortunately losing just a second from the expected timing.

Hamilton swapped tyres in the next lap and came out to find his teammate making a flying lap, for which he registered the fastest lap. Verstappen, who led the race when the Ferraris dived into the pit-stops duly took his 10-second penalty when he pitted on the 41st lap.

The second half of the race became more exciting as the Mercedes closed in on the Ferraris. Mercedes gave team orders to allow Hamilton to have a shot at overtaking Raikkonen, with the understanding that he would cede the position to Bottas if he was unable to make the better of the Ferrari.

The chase was on. With 20 laps to go, Hamilton was 2.5 seconds behind Vettel with Raikkonen in between the two. Try as he might however, Hamilton was unable to rope in the Finn as the Ferraris maintained their edge in pace.

This left Hamilton with the difficult job of allowing Bottas to overtake him on the final lap with the present danger of Verstappen tantalizingly close to the Finn’s Merc.

Hamilton let Bottas through after the final corner and just hundreds of metres before the chequered flag. Vettel extended his lead to 14 points while Bottas is now 19 points behind Hamilton as the season takes a summer break.

McLaren Honda’s Fernando Alonso finished an impressive sixth and made the fastest lap in the penultimate lap of the race to end the first half of the season on a high after a series of disappointments in previous races.