See, that's why we need rain every now and again - even if it had stopped before the start of the race. The powers that be could have been left looking rather silly had they opted to start under the safety car - we know in the past that safety cars have been called as soon as the level of precipitation exceeds the level required for intermediate tyres. For once it seems - contrary to popular opinion the stewards made the right call.
What we were left with was 1hr 53 minutes of entertainment, defying the reputation that Hungarian GP has accumulated over the years. Of course the only times that reputation has been disobeyed had been when the weather has played a considerably part in the race. It was a race of two halves really, one based filled with a little bit of madness and unpredictability, and this half defined the strategies and track position of the second phase once the racing surface had dried up. If I hadn't seen some of the highlights of the Spa 24hr GT race i'd say that the Hungarian GP was a destructive affair - but the GT event looks like it was directed by Michael Bay with all fire and destruction all over the place... Guess where the field is heading next...
The Race
An hour before the start a large thunderstorm hit the track leaving it very wet indeed, but as per normal most of if had dried out before the actual start. We saw a couple of drivers running off the track on their laps to the grid - Maldonado visiting the grass in the middle sector on the far side of the track. On the whole the drivers and teams elected to start the race on the intermediate tyres. According to Kvyat, Toro Rosso attempted to start the race without an engine and failed to pull away on the formation lap. The Russian would rejoin the race, but one lap down.
Sensibly it was an ordinary standing start and the front row eased away in unison along with Bottas in third. The Finn showed bravery under braking for diving into turn one to sneak around the outside of Sebastian Vettel to steal second. Another driver to make progress was Jenson Button - the driver to have won 100% of the rain affected races at the Hungaroring taking 5th from Ricciardo before turn two. As for Hamilton, he found his pit lane starting position rather cramped with Magnussen heading the queue following the damage he suffered in Q3. Lewis passed Kevin almost before leaving the pits, but on cold brakes span the car in turn two gently brushing the barriers with the left front tyre. Normally you'd consider this to be the narrowest crash escape - but we'd see an even more dramatic display later on.
In the initial phase of the race the front half of the grid were playing it rather cautiously - Rosberg had vanished off into the distance while Bottas had Vettel for company in second. The radio traffic was concerned about track conditions and the threat of further rainfall spotted on the radar... we got one shower, hoping for a second was just greedy. Just like in Germany all of the attention was put on Hamilton and his recovery drive through the field - the conditions negating the single line effect of the race track. However unlike Germany the camera direction wasn't quite as good - we have no idea how the Briton made it from 21st up to 13th... I'm guessing that's what the magic switch does. The first real coverage of this charge showed Lewis duelling with Kimi Raikkonen in the final two corners, Kimi defended the position using the outside line. But alas the Mercedes engine proved to be the decisive factor and Hamilton left the Ferrari for dead on the main straight.
The race was put on hold for a little while when the camera panned to the decimated wreckage of Marcus Eriksson's Caterham. The Swede had got all kinds of sideways on the exit of turn three, initially he saved the drift but the car swapped back in the other direction and was wiped across the barrier on the outside. The safety car was deployed to clean up the incident and the field streamed into the pits - unfortunately Rosberg, Bottas and Vettel had passed the pits when the incident happened. As a result they were mired back in the pack. Jenson Button and Vergne came close to contact when the McLaren was released. We also had a Mexican stand-off between Perez and Gutierrez as the pair drove down the pit-lane two wide and continued all the way to turn one. Just as we were all set to go back to green the safety car period was extended - Romain Grosjean span his Lotus under the yellow flag conditions and bounced off the tyre wall in turn three, opposite the site of Eriksson's accident.
Finally things did get under way again with Ricciardo leading from Jenson Button who restarted on a new set of Intermediate tyres - hoping for more rain. As Jenson took the lead from the Australian on the restart the strategy decision seemed like an inspired call - a hat trick of wins in the wet for Button... Well that all centred on the hope that this second bout of rain was going to arrive... and it didn't. Rosberg seemed to be struggling in the few laps following the restart with wisps of smoke coming out of his left rear brake duct. The German didn't have the pace that the Mercedes has been known for, and demonstrated before the safety car interruption. This started backing up the cars behind him bunching Vergne, Alonso, Vettel and the two Force India drivers all up together. Both Perez and Hulkenberg slid wide almost into each other in turn five gifting two places to Hamilton and to Vettel. This bunching got worse as Rosberg caught up to back of Kevin Magnussen on worn intermediates. Nico attempted to take the place from the McLaren but managed to lose a place to Jean-Eric Vergne instead, to which Alonso followed suit to take another place from Rosberg... Here on lap 15 only the car of Sebastian Vettel separated Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
At the back of the queue headed now by Magnussen and Vergne - the two Force India drivers had a bit of a falling out - Hulkenberg attempted a pass on Perez. Unfortunately Nico collected his team-mate, somehow Sergio kept it pointing in the right direction but Hulkenberg ended up in the barrier in the final corner. Rosberg attempted to make a move on Vergne again in turn one - almost going into the back of Magnussen in the process. But the Frenchman resisted, cutting back to the inside and reclaiming the position. Magnussen pitted from the front of the group which once was a seething squabbling mass and was now a more concise four car train. Vergne doing a valiant job of holding off two Mercedes cars and a quadruple world champion in his Toro Rosso. With all this chaos going on it was a massive surprise that we hadn't heard from Pastor Maldonado, well the Venezuelan refused to be left out as he attempted a pass on Jules Bianchi. Pastor locked up and slid into the side of the Marussia and span himself round in the process only be narrowly avoided by Kobayashi in the sole remaining Caterham. Despite all this Chilton was still last...
As the rain failed to arrive Button too had to abandon his intermediate tyres and hand the lead back to Ricciardo with Massa and Alonso following behind him. The camera panned back to the Vergne train only to see the shape of a Force India slide across from the outside of the track in the background and smash itself to pieces against the pitwall. Sergio Perez had put a wheel on the astro-turf beyond the final corner and fire into the concrete wall. In this one incident we saw the importance of respecting track limits, and an irefutable case for a safety car intervention due to a stationary vehicle on the front straight. There were also a lot of bits of said stationary vehicle scattered about as well - which may have swayed the decision. So the safety car was deployed again. In the 2015 theory of standing restarts, races like this could easily erupt into a ridiculous cycle of restart followed by collision and another restart.
Fernando Alonso stayed out under the safety car and assumed the lead on the restart with Jean-Eric Vergne in second place as Ricciardo and Massa pitted. When the safety car returned to the pits the race seemed to be falling into Alonso's hands as Vergne couldn't keep up with the Ferrari and started to hold up the cars behind him. In the first few laps following the restart things calmed down again, after all if they got any more manic there would be no more cars left in the race by the time we reached the chequered flag. The retirement tally increased even further as Kamui Kobayashi and Esteban Gutierrez were forced to retire as a result of technical difficulties. We had to wait around until the next round of pit-stops before things got interesting again. Lewis Hamilton was informed that overtaking Vettel and Vergne were mission critical objectives. Unlike yesterday it appeared Lewis had some more luck on his side as both those objectives cleared themselves in the space of one corner. Vergne pitted, and Vettel put a wheel on the outside of the final corner - like Perez - and headed to the pit wall. Somehow, and it still beggars belief how the German kept the car out of the concrete only brushing a rear tyre against the paintwork. The car didn't even come to a stop, executing a complete 360 spin without damage and carried on - he did lose a few places in the process however.
Hamilton was now running in second position... after starting from the pit land and hitting the fence on lap one... how fortunes change. As Fernando pitted from the lead - the top spot was passed to Lewis... winning from last place, that can't be possible right, especially at Hungary. Even after the Briton made his stop he rejoined in front of Rosberg... that'll go down well. As we'll find out later it didn't. But first we caught up with Vettel, who after stealing the accolade of closest crash escape from Lewis now had Kimi Raikkonen to deal with. The Ferrari had rejoined on fresh tyres directly in front of the Red Bull driver and positioned the car perfectly to prevent Sebastian stealing the position. Raikkonen then caught up with Maldonado, scything down the inside of the Lotus as it circulated on an alternate strategy following the contact with Bianchi.
Back to the Hamilton/Rosberg struggle and an interesting situation had developed. Nico on older but faster tyres had caught Hamilton and requested that he should be allowed past due to his alternate strategy. Hamilton was then instructed 'Not to hold Nico up' which generally means let the other car through. Would Hamilton play ball, would he hell - instead he started edge away from an increasingly frustrated German. Rosberg in an agitated state asked the team why he wasn't been allowed through. To which Hamilton replied 'I'm not slowing down for Nico, if he gets close enough he can overtake'. In fairness Nico wasn't exactly sitting on Lewis' gearbox, but that is a factor of the aerodynamic wake of an identical car preventing him getting close. These ten laps of follow-the-leader was blatantly costing Nico time - but considering he was racing Lewis for position indirectly via strategy you could understand Lewis' reluctance to comply with the team wishes. But I can expect some fallout from this sequence of events - good thing there is some time off to calm down afterwards.
Rosberg pitted to get out of the turbulent air of his team mate and rejoined behind the other Mercedes and rejoined behind the Bottas, Raikkonen battle. Ricciardo also pitted from the lead - handing the reigns to Fernando Alonso, who was planning to go to the end on his current set of tyres. It was a gamble that depended on Fernando being able to hold off anyone on fresher tyres making a charge at the end of the race. As the gaps sorted themselves out, two distinct battle groups emerged - the main one being a three way tussle for the lead of the race. Fernando Alonso had been caught by Lewis Hamilton who in turn had Ricciardo on much fresher tyres clawing back time on the Mercedes at a rapid pace. The second battle focussed on Rosberg dealing with Raikkonen and Massa. First he dispatched the Ferrari after Raikkonen got caught up behind Massa through turn one. This was followed up with a DRS assisted pass on Felipe Massa - Rosberg should email this video to Hamilton later as an demonstration that a Mercedes can pass a Williams after Lewis's struggles against Bottas in Germany. What this did mean was that Nico had clear track ahead of him and an abundance of pace as he hunted down Lewis Hamilton for round two.
At the front the top three were very close together, Ricciardo having caught up with Hamilton and Alonso. Daniel's strategy seemed to be working out, in the end all he had to do was pass the fastest car on the grid and a double world champion... how hard could it be. As it so happened it proved to be quite challenging, and Hamilton was having the same struggle attempting to take the position from Alonso. It was a very tense, close quarters battle with little room for error, and the pressure was building as Rosberg was catching all three cars at over three seconds per lap. With three cars separated by 0.3s it was wonderfully poised with six laps remaining - that poise momently evaded Alonso as he ran across the inside of the top chicane. Which in the childish spirit of driving these days resulted in a complaint from Hamilton claiming Fernando gained an advantage and should be penalised. Considering Lewis had come from the pit lane things had gone all right thus far he didn't need to start being all petty again - besides Ricciardo was his main threat.
The Australian attempted to capitalise on another failed Hamilton attack on Alonso to go round the outside of the second corner. Hamilton gently closed the door leaving Daniel nowhere to go. One lap later Ricciardo tried again, getting further alongside such that Lewis couldn't force him out wide, Ricciardo held his ground and claimed the position on the inside of turn three. This was bad news for Alonso as he now had a car on fresher tyres right behind him, one that would be much harder to defend against. Sure enough on the main straight Daniel Ricciardo used the DRS to close on Fernando - but dove down the inside from a long way back, leaning on the fresher grip of the softer tyres to get the car stopped. Like in Canada when things go wrong with the Mercedes Daniel Ricciardo picks up the pieces and takes the lead with three laps to go. Does that mean the battles were over... not quite yet.
On the final lap Hamilton had Rosberg right behind him - and with Alonso ahead he couldn't really escape. Nico in a much faster car got up alongside his team-mate through turn two. Just like in the duel with Ricciardo, Hamilton slammed the door - this time he was a lot more forceful almost putting Nico out onto the grass. This was the last real opportunity for Nico to make it onto the podium. Daniel Ricciardo claimed his second win of the season - the only driver to beat the Mercedes strikes again. The longer strategy of Fernando Alonso allowed him to be the second car to be only the second driver to complete a race ahead of all of the Mercedes drivers in a race in taking second place. In a second successive remarkable comeback Hamilton goes from the pit-lane to podium, via the barrier. Rosberg had to settle for fourth place behind his team-mate. Massa and Raikkonen came home in 5th and 6th ahead of Vettel after his very near visit to the concrete wall. The timing of the safety car prevented Bottas from continuing his run of podium finishes, demoting him to 8th. Vergne finished in the points for Toro Rosso after restarting in second place. The final point went to Jenson Button - on the cusp of an inspired strategy call which ultimately made his afternoon very difficult.
The Bonus Points Championship Points Winners
When conditions throw up something unusual it can force some notable performances throughout the field, performances that deserve points.
- 25pts - Lewis Hamilton - Pits to podium via the barrier, and executing an immense pass on Vergne on the outside of turn four in the process
- 18pts - Daniel Ricciardo - Selecting a strategy that involves overtaking at Hungary is a tough call, making it work is brilliant
- 15pts - Fernando Alonso - Hanging onto ruined tyres for so long under pressure extreme pressure deserves many points
- 12pts - Kimi Raikkonen - Not as impressive as Hamilton's drive, but 16th-6th in a Ferrari which isn't the fastest car is a strong day's work
- 10pts - Jean-Eric Vergne - Utter defiance under attack from Rosberg, and held onto second place well, strong awareness as Lewis came past
- 8pts - Sebastian Vettel - Simply for keeping that car out of the wall, stunt driving at it's finest
- 6pts - Jenson Button - Turned a risky strategy decision into a recovery drive for the final championship point... curse the lack of more rain
- 4pts - Nico Rosberg - The strongest recovery of the three drivers caught out by the first safety car timing
- 2pts - Adrian Sutil - Came so close to scoring Sauber's first points of the season in 11th place, clearly today wasn't quite crazy enough for them
- 1pt - Esteban/Gutierrez - A pit lane mexican stand-off duel deserves a point apiece.
Looking Forward to Belgium
Here it comes, the big one, after the long summer break one of the most exhilerating venues of the season looms large on the horizon. If the Spa 24hr race is anything to go by there will be very few cars left standing come the end of the race. That is even before the threat of rain, and in the Belgian forests there is always the threat of rain. Although I get the ominous feeling that after the shower before the race today we've used up our allocation of precipitation for 2014 - we have yet to see any rainfall during a race since Brazil 2012... and that was a magnificent race.
The month long break allows Hamilton and Rosberg to stew in their collective disagreements following today - in the event of a championship battle it is every man for himself. Even if they operate from the same team garage. Nico may have hoped for a team decision to over-ride Hamilton's personal championship charge, but I'm not sure he'll make that call again... and if the racing-boot is on the other foot, well, we'll just have to wait and see.
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