We arrived at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the last round of Formula 1 before the summer break. We go in with Sebastian Vettel as championship leader, but his advantage is not very big. His greatest rival, Lewis Hamilton, is very close.
However, the Hungaroring circuit is better suited to the characteristics of the Ferrari car. A circuit that is often compared to Monaco, but with the difference of being open.
Hungaroring does not bring much luck to Brazilian Felipe Massa. It was here in 2009 were he suffered the biggest accident of his career and this year he has not been able to dispute it. The Brazilian driver felt unwell this weekend. After testing, if he was well enough to participate in the free practice 3, he decided not to dispute the classification, nor the race.
Instead, Paul Di Resta, reserve driver of the Williams team, got into the car. Without driving a single lap before qualifying and not having any experience in any race since the Brazilian Grand Prix 2013. Despite the opportunity, Di Resta has been unable to complete the seventy laps of the Hungaroring circuit.
He had to leave due to an oil leak in his Williams car. However, he has spent more time been on track than Ricciardo. At the start the Australian driver was beaten by his teammate and was out of the race at the beginning.
On the contrary, the Mercedes and Ferrari pilots respected their teammates. This race was more a battle of teams than of pilots. Vettel, who had the first position, had problems with his steering wheel and every lap he was wasting more time. Raikkonen, who had a better pace than his teammate, followed his team’s instructions to protect his teammate instead of overtaking him.
While at Mercedes, Bottas was third but could not overtake Raikkonen, so he let Hamilton pass for the English driver to have his chance to try. Hamilton finally failed to pass Raikkonen and returned the position to his partner in the last lap. Vettel’s victory meant he received an increase of fourteen points to his advantage in the pilot’s championship. Hamilton, after giving the position back to Bottas finished in the fourth position outside the podium.
But this week the news has been the announcement of Honda and Sauber. The termination of their agreement became official. Next season Ferrari will supply the engines to the Sauber team. But Honda is not the only one injured with this decision, Mclaren will also be affected.
Woking will no longer supply the gearboxes, among other systems of the equipment to Sauber, as it was foreseen before the agreement was broken. Despite the bad news Mclaren-Honda had one of their best weekend of the season.
They were able to finish their two cars in points, even Alonso, who finished in the sixth position, got the fastest lap of the Grand Prix in the last lap of the race. A great feat telling that his tires had thirty-three laps. In addition, the Spanish pilot managed to do some very good overtaking on the track.