Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel emerges F1 champ in Hungarian thriller

Pictures courtesy Ferrari

It was Sebastian Vettel as well as his team Ferrari’s second victory of the Formula One season in Hungary on July 26, 2015. In a way it also broke the monotony of a Lewis / Nico win for Mercedes for several of the recent F1 races. It was a pure Hungarian thriller as Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat scored his first F1 podium in second and team mate Daniel Ricciardo surviving clashes with both Mercedes cars for the third position.

For the Silver Arrows it was a disastrous race as the two drivers had secured a pole and a second position a day earlier. Lewis Hamilton started badly from pole, ran off track to drop to 10th on lap one, and later took a drive-through penalty for a collision with Ricciardo. He eventually raced in sixth while his teammate Nico Rosberg managed an eight.

But there was no denying that it was a Ferrari day.  A 69 lap charge around the Hungaroring ended in a win for Sebastian Vettel. The German took the lead right after the start but saw his 30 second advantage wiped out when the Safety Car came out on lap 42. Seb kept his concentration, doing a good job of managing the final third of the race, to take the chequered flag in first place for his second win with Ferrari, his first ever in Hungary.

Seb’s teammate Kimi Raikkonen was, however, very unlucky. The Finn was lying second for much of the race, thanks to a great start and a determined overtaking move on Rosberg under braking for Turn 2. Kimi was right behind his team-mate for two thirds of the race, but his chance of a podium evaporated on lap 56 when a problem with his energy recovery system meant he had to retire

Equally unlucky was Rosberg who was set for second, until a late coming-together with the charging Ricciardo at Turn 1 - deemed a racing incident by the stewards - gave him a left-rear puncture and dropped the German to eighth.

By midpoint - lap 35 in a 69 lap race (it was meant to be 70 laps), Ferrari’s Vettel was leading teammate Raikkonen by eight seconds and an off-form Rosberg a further 11.8s back. Hamilton's efforts, meanwhile, had seen him climb to fourth, another 14s back.

On the 42nd lap, the front wing of Nico Hulkenberg's Force India tore off, showering Ricciardo with debris and sending the hapless German out of seventh place and into a high-speed meeting with the tyre wall. He missed Valtteri Bottas's Williams by centimetres, and fortunately climbed shaken but unharmed from the wreckage.

At first the Virtual Safety Car was deployed, but two laps later the real thing came out as there was too much debris to be cleared away.