Everyone expected the unexpected in the Hungarian Grand Prix, with talk of up to four pit stops over the course of the 70 laps and yesterday, the rain further complicated matters, on a day when Fernando Alonso was one of several drivers to spin out and back into contention before taking third place on the podium, two places up on his grid position. From fourth on the grid, Felipe Massa also had an eventful afternoon, coming home sixth. The win went to McLaren’s Jenson Button, who was celebrating his 200th Grand Prix this weekend ahead of the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel.  

The Hungaroring had been damp more or less all day leading up to race start time. Even though there was just a light drizzle, it was enough for all 24 cars to line up on intermediate rain tyres. Vettel got away cleanly from pole, then the two McLarens of Button and Hamilton held themselves up, which helped in allowing both Mercedes to jink past the two Ferraris with Fernando also passing Felipe but by the end of the lap Fernando had passed Schumacher to lie fifth again, although behind Rosberg, with Felipe down to seventh behind Schumacher.  

For the next two laps Hamilton was all over Vettel’s gearbox and on lap 3, Fernando passed Rosberg and Felipe passed Schumacher so the Ferraris were now fourth and sixth. At the start of lap 4, Fernando ran wide allowing Rosberg past again, so the two Ferraris were now nose to tail in fifth and sixth places. One lap later and pressure from Hamilton forced Vettel to run wide at Turn 2 giving the McLaren the lead. Meanwhile Fernando ran wide again, letting Felipe go ahead but on lap 7 the order between them switched again. At the start of lap 8, the treacherous Turn 2 caught out Felipe who touched the barriers with the back of his 150º Italia but still kept going with damage to the left rear wing endplate. Lap 9 and Fernando finally found a way past Rosberg to go fourth, but Felipe’s incident had dropped the Brazilian to ninth as the track began to dry.  

With 10 laps completed the order was Hamilton, Vettel, Button, Alonso, Rosberg, Webber, although the Australian pitted on this lap, the first to switch to slick tyres. Felipe did the same, as did Petrov and Barrichello. Button changed to slicks on lap 11, followed down pit lane by Di Resta in the Force India. Maldonaldo and Heidfeld also came in. Leader Hamilton came in on lap 12 with Vettel and Alonso and Rosberg doing the same.

With the leaders all on dry tyres the order at the front was Hamilton, followed by Vettel but not for long because Button also passed the Red Bull to make it a McLaren one-two, while Webber got the better of Fernando to move up to fourth. Meanwhile, Felipe was much quicker than those ahead and closed right up to eighth placed Schumacher on lap 19. Out in front, Hamilton led his McLaren team-mate Button by over 9 seconds, with Vettel and Webber next up for Red Bull, with Fernando just half a second off the Australian. As the Brazilian had predicted, even with DRS, passing was no easy matter here and whereas a week ago in Germany he found himself lap after lap staring at the back of Rosberg’s car, this time it was a view of the other Mercedes, that of Schumacher, that kept him occupied.  

On lap 25 Webber and Alonso made their second stops together, followed by Felipe, Petrov and Buemi and leader Hamilton at the start of lap 26 and Button on 27, with Fernando setting a race fastest lap at this point. Meanwhile Felipe got past Schumacher, who spun and stopped on track, as Vettel made his second tyre change, with the Brazilian Ferrari driver now finding himself in seventh place after a great passing move on Rosberg. Around the 30 lap mark, Fernando was lapping half a second quicker than Webber with less than a second separating them in their fight for fourth. Lap 34 saw Felipe move up to sixth as he slid past Kobayashi in the Sauber.  

Lap 36 and Fernando was the first of the leaders to make a third tyre change, again for Super Softs and three laps later Webber came in so that Fernando moved ahead of him. Hamilton made his third stop on lap 40, rejoining third behind Button and Vettel while Felipe also came in for fresh rubber. Next it was Vettel to come in followed by Button on lap 42 and as the run of pit stops played out, it became clear that Fernando got the edge over Vettel to go third behind the two McLarens. However, on lap 45, Vettel managed to brush past the Spaniard to regain third, while Felipe was now seventh.  

As a few drops of rain began to fall on lap 47, Button made the most of coming up to backmarkers to get past his team-mate to relegate Hamilton, who spun on the slippery track, to second, as Fernando made a fourth stop, again taking on slick tyres, dropping him to fifth behind Webber again. The two McLarens were duelling hard for the lead, until Button ran wide on lap 51 to hand the lead to Hamilton, but it was not over there as the two McLarens passed one another a further two times in the next lap so that Hamilton was in the lead once again before pitting next time round. The Englishman fitted intermediate tyres while Fernando moved up to fourth again as Webber pitted for his fourth change, also taking on rain tyres. Felipe was now sixth, having made three stops so far.  

Lap 54 saw Fernando drive round Hamilton to put the 150º Italia up to third, while the Mclaren man, evidently needing to go back to slicks, came in for stop number 5. As Webber had also made a fifth stop to go back to slicks, Felipe was now fifth. Fernando was lapping much faster than second placed Vettel. When Hamilton had to take a drive-through penalty for the way in which he rejoined the track after a spin, the Brazilian Ferrari man was up to fourth behind his team-mate and a very fast Webber who got past at the start of lap 57 so Felipe now had his mirrors full of Hamilton and indeed a few corners later, the McLaren got by. Felipe chose to change tyres for a fourth time on lap 59, as his team-mate survived a big slide still hanging onto third spot. There were battles throughout the field, including one for eighth place as Kobayashi in the Sauber led the two Toro Rossos of Buemi and Alguersuari. With four laps remaining, as backmarkers got in the way, Hamilton got past Webber to take fourth place. Behind Felipe in sixth, the rest of the points went to Di Resta, seventh, Buemi eighth, having started from 23rd, Rosberg and Alguersuari tenth. Formula 1 now takes its compulsory summer break, returning for action at the challenging Spa-Francorchamps circuit, for the Belgian Grand Prix on 28 August.

Stefano Domenicali: “All things considered, we can be reasonably pleased with the way things went. Certainly, going into the race, maybe we had hoped to get a little bit more out of it, but this seems to be the wettest July in the history of Formula 1! I don’t know if that is really the case, but it’s a fact that the last three races have all been run in the conditions that suit us the least. Having said that, the race was marked by incidents which, for better or for worse, made the difference. Therefore having managed to get to the podium in these circumstances is still positive and we can consider that our glass is half full. I am confident in the belief that, after the summer break, we will have every chance of getting some nice results. The championship would be very open without Vettel, but we will continue to fight for the title until it is mathematically impossible. Now we will push on as hard as we can next week, before the summer shut down, to be as well prepared as possible for the Belgian Grand Prix.”

Fernando Alonso: “Another podium finish, the fourth in a row: we have been competitive on four tracks with different characteristics and certainly this July, in weather that definitely does not suit our car. So that gives me confidence for the rest of the championship, even if now I can’t wait to pause for breath. It has been a very busy and stressful July and I think that everyone, especially the team members, deserve a couple of weeks holiday. When we start again, let’s hope we finally get some warm weather, even though that cannot be taken for granted at Spa. I got away well at the start but then, at the first corner, I had some difficulty in terms of traction and Michael managed to pass me. After that, various incidents in the early stages cost me valuable time behind the Mercedes and then Webber. At that moment, we decided to pit early and switch to a four stop strategy: the plan worked out and that was how we made it to the podium. Sure, even the others had some difficult moments but we did a good job of staying on track with the dry tyres when it began to rain again. At that moment, we were not very fast on the Super Soft, but we did not panic and then we switched to the Soft. It was a very interesting and exciting race and I want to congratulate Jenson, who celebrated his two hundredth Formula 1 race in the best way possible.”

Felipe Massa: “It was a difficult race with the rain coming and going. My afternoon was ruined when I went off the track on lap 8. The back end of the car hit the barriers and I was scared the car might be too damaged to continue, but my engineer told me I could keep going. I lost so much time because of that and even if I made some nice passing moves and moved up the order, I am still annoyed at not having been able to fight for a podium finish as I probably could have done. When it began to rain after lap 40 – but also at the start – the conditions were very difficult: you had to absolutely avoid the white lines because they were extremely slippery and it was like driving on ice. Now we have a bit of a holiday: I will head back to Brazil to be with my family and I always enjoy spending time in my country. I am sure that when I come back to Europe, it will mark the start of a second part of the championship, a better one than the first.”

Pat Fry: “It was an incident packed race, run in weather conditions that definitely did not suit us. We lost the chance of fighting for the top slots, losing time in the first part of the race, but then, thanks to an aggressive strategy – four stops for Fernando and the same for Felipe – we managed to make up some places. Of course, we also profited from the problems of others, but that’s racing. As for the pit stops, at Fernando’s first one, we had to keep him on his spot because a Mercedes was coming and we could not risk a dangerous manoeuvre. In another couple of moments we also lost a few tenths compared to the optimum standard, but these glitches did not cost us anything in terms of position. It’s an area in which we can and we must continue to improve, as indeed we should in terms of the car’s performance. Here, we were reasonably competitive, as can be seen by the fact Felipe set the fastest race lap, but we need to make another step forward, especially in the slower corners. Qualifying performance also needs to get better because starting from the second or third rows definitely means you struggle more in the race. Now we must prepare for Belgium and for Monza, two races at different types of track, where we will bring some new aerodynamic components. The others will do the same, so we will see who has done the best job.”