F1: Hamilton claims record win and top spot in title race

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- Lewis Hamilton equalled one of Michael Schumacher’s many records on Sunday when he delivered a classic drive to become the first driver to complete a hat-trick of Hungarian Grand Prix victories.

The defending six-time champion, who won at the Hungaroring in 2018 and 2019, enlarged his overall total of Hungarian triumphs to eight, drawing level with Schumacher’s eight wins at the French Grand Prix, the most by any driver at a single race venue.

Driving with exemplary concentration and aplomb, Hamilton controlled a tactical race from lights to flag, making light of changing conditions to deliver his 86th win, five short of Schumacher’s record total of 91.

It was Hamilton's second win this season, following victory at the Styrian Grand Prix a week earlier, and lifted him to the top of the drivers’ championship by a single point ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas who won the opening Austrian Grand Prix.

“Round One was multiple different punches that I wasn't ready for,” said Hamilton, referring to the defeat in the season opener.

“But I have refocused and we’ve just been on point here right through the weekend.”

Max Verstappen was a remarkable second for Red Bull after his crew repaired severe damage to his car’s suspension on the grid caused when the Dutchman had crashed before the start. He held off a late attack by Bottas to stay second by fractions of a second. 

"It wasn’t how I wanted it, of course, but the mechanics did an amazing job to fix the car so to pay them back with second place is great,” said Verstappen. 

Bottas came home a frustrated third, just metres behind, but ahead of Lance Stroll’s Racing Point, Alex Albon in the second Red Bull and four-time champion Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari.

"It was a pretty bad race, to be honest,” said Bottas. “I lost it at the start. I reacted to a light on my dash that went off – instead of the start lights so I had to do the start again.”

Sergio Perez was seventh in the second ‘pink Mercedes’ Racing Point ahead of Daniel Ricciardo of Renault, Kevin Magnussen of Haas and Carlos Sainz of McLaren. 

After an intense burst of pre-race drama, in which Verstappen crashed on his final lap to join the grid and a seemingly rushed ‘end racism’ gesture by many of the drivers, Hamilton was coolness personified.

Starting from the 90th pole of his career, he pulled clear to lead by three seconds on the opening lap, ahead of Stroll and Verstappen, all of them running on intermediate tyres in the tricky conditions.

Bottas jumped the start and was then bogged down and fell to sixth.

The champion pitted for slicks at the end of the second lap returning in fourth and was back on top by lap five with the two Haas cars of Magnussen and Grosjean in pursuit after a well-judged switch from wets to slicks.

- Stick or twist? -

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Today I raced for everyone out there who is pushing to make positive change and fight inequality, however, sadly, as a sport we need to do so much more. It is embarrassing that many teams have not made any public commitment to diversity or that we couldn’t properly find time to make a symbolic gesture in support of ending racism before the race. Today felt rushed and massively lacked organisation and effort, which in turn dilutes the message and makes it seem like there was something more important. It doesn’t matter if you stand or kneel, but we should be showing the world that F1 is united in its commitment to equality and inclusivity. F1 and the FIA need to do more. There is no quick fix for racial inequality, but it is certainly something that we can’t just acknowledge once and then move on. We have to stay focussed, keep highlighting the problem and hold those with the power accountable. #BlackLivesMatter #EndRacism

A post shared by Lewis Hamilton (@lewishamilton) on Jul 19, 2020 at 12:41pm PDT

After a fine start lifted him to fourth, Vettel followed Hamilton into the pits, but a tentative release by Ferrari cost him at least five seconds and dropped him to ninth.

By lap 20, Hamilton led Verstappen by 11 seconds and Stroll by 27 with Bottas fourth ahead of the two Haas men and Albon.

Bottas pitted on lap 34 shortly before Hamilton, 19 seconds clear of Verstappen, reported the first drops of anticipated rain. The Finn’s immediate speed enabled a perfect under-cut of Stroll who, after pitting, emerged in fourth.

Verstappen came in for hards and then Hamilton for fresh mediums on lap 38, staying ahead by 19.418 with Bottas closing on the Dutchman by lap 40.

Bottas then pitted and clocked a fastest lap, heaping pressure on Red Bull’s strategists: to stick or twist?

With 12 laps to go, Hamilton lapped Vettel’s Ferrari, leaving only three men behind him on the same lap. "These tyres don’t feel good," he had complained only seconds earlier.

Offered hard tyres at his final pit stop, Hamilton requested softs in a bid for fastest lap. "What’s going on," he asked his engineer Peter Bonnington. "Standby, Lewis, while I found out myself," came the reply as his crew ran into the pit-lane and back again.

Eventually, he pitted on lap 66, re-joining with a lead of 4.7 seconds in pursuit of fastest lap. He clocked it with 1:16.627 for a precious extra point and leadership of the championship

Agence France-Presse

F1: Vettel wins while sporting Hamilton keeps his word

BUDAPEST - Sebastian Vettel won a tense Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday in a Ferrari one-two that stretched his championship lead to 14 points after Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton sportingly surrendered third place to his team mate.

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 team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

The Finn had looked faster than Vettel for most of the afternoon.

"I'm over the moon, that was a really difficult race," said the winner, 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 team mate 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 team mate 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 team mate would have swapped 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."

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 team mate 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 team mate 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 team mate 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.

Spaniard Carlos Sainz was seventh for Toro Rosso with Mexican Sergio Perez eighth and Force India team mate Esteban Ocon ninth.

Britain's Paul di Resta, replacing unwell Brazilian Felipe Massa at Williams, retired.

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.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Vettel wins for Bianchi and Ferrari on emotionally-charged day

BUDAPEST, Hungary -- German driver Sebastian Vettel delivered an emotional high-speed tribute to his late colleague Jules Bianchi on Sunday when he stormed to victory for Ferrari in a dramatic and incident-filled Hungarian Grand Prix.

The four-time world champion claimed his second victory of the season and 41st of his career -- drawing him level with the late Brazilian legend Ayrton Senna in equal third on the all-time list -- after leading from the start to dominate a thrilling and unpredictable contest.

The Red Bull pair of Russian Daniil Kvyat and Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished in second and third respectively.

The ferocity of the contest, lit up by Vettel’s blazing speed and tenacity, served as an appropriate tribute to Frenchman Bianchi, who died on July 17 from injuries sustained when he collided with a recovery vehicle in torrential rain at last October’s Japanese Grand Prix.

A minute’s silence for Bianchi, a Ferrari academy protégé, before the race created an emotional atmosphere that was reflected in the action and in Vettel’s speech to the Ferrari team on his triumphant slow-down lap.

"Merci Jules, c’est a toi," said the winner. “Thank you Jules, You will always be in our hearts This win is for you."

It was Vettel’s first victory in Hungary, and 21-year-old Kvyat’s first career podium – the best ever by a Russian driver -- as Red Bull produced a reminder of their pedigree. It was the first podium this year without a Mercedes driver.

"Yes, an incredible day, but this victory is for Jules," said Vettel, mindful the Frenchman’s family were in attendance.

"It has been an incredibly tough week for all of us and, for all the people at Ferrari, who know that, sooner or later, he would have been part of our team."

Kvyat said he owed his podium to his own determination.

"After Turn One, I thought my race might be over because I had a massive flat-spot, but my team told me to keep pushing and today I learned what it means to never give up," said Kvyat.

Ricciardo said: "It was a crazy race. I had a contact at the restart with Lewis and thought my race might be over. I had contact with Nico and thought my race was over

"I left it all on the track today. I gave it everything and I owe my race to Jules. I gained extra strength today and I owe that to him."

Dutch teenager Jos Verstappen finished fourth for Toro Rosso -- on a track where his father Jos finished on the podium in 1994 -- ahead of two-time champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso who delivered the troubled McLaren Honda team’s best result of the year in fifth place.

Series leader and defending two-time champion Briton Lewis Hamilton finished sixth, after starting from pole position, for Mercedes to enlarge his advantage in the title race after an afternoon of incidents, mishaps and penalties.

Inspired, perhaps, by the team’s call for total commitment to racing in a signal of respect for Bianchi, Vettel surged from third on the grid to pass Rosberg into Turn One.

Behind him, team-mate Kimi Raikkonen followed closely as both Rosberg and Hamilton attempted to defend, but just as at Silverstone three weeks previously, the two Mercedes men were out-started comprehensively.

Hamilton was relegated to fourth on the opening lap during which, in an attempt to pass Rosberg, he ran wide across a gravel trap at the chicane.

He returned to the track in a spray of stones, re-joining in 10th place. "Nico crossed my line there, he pushed me wide," said Hamilton, a claim not supported by video replays.

After closing the gap behind Rosberg to five seconds, Hamilton lost time in traffic while Raikkonen, suffering more bad luck, lost power and slowed before Hulkenberg, after losing the front wing on his Force India car in a frightening incident on the straight, crashed directly into the barriers at Turn One.

A virtual safety car was deployed immediately followed by the Safety Car as debris was cleared. As the field closed up, both Rosberg and Hamilton pitted for harder medium tyres for a final rush to the flag.

More drama erupted at the re-start on lap 49. Sensing his chance, Rosberg attacked and passed Raikkonen for second while Hamilton, on harder tyres, struggled against Ricciardo and collided with him at Turn One, the Briton losing a front wing end-plate.

It was his final significant act. He pitted on lap 52 for a new front wing, re-joined 13th and was then given a drive-through penalty for his part in the incident.

Hamilton was admirably frank about his performance.

"I was all over the place," said Hamilton, who had been fastest in every session on Friday and Saturday.

"I don't have any words to explain what happened today. It was a really bad performance from myself.

"I pushed and never gave up, but when I had two different choices I chose the wrong one very time. It was weird

"Do I deserve any points? I didn't give up and drove as hard as I could.

"To come away from one of the worst performances I've put in in a long, long time... it shows we are human."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com