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There were
no special birthday presents for Fernando Alonso, who
turned 31 today, but as the Spaniard said earlier in the
week, the important thing is to always bring home as
many points as possible, be that a win or a fifth place.
Today, that meant the lesser of those two options, but
thanks to the 10 points that come with it, the Spaniard
saw his lead in the Drivers’ classification grow by a
further six points from 34 to 40, over Mark Webber, who
finished eighth today in the Red Bull. Although Felipe
Massa in the other F2012 never really recovered from
losing a few places at the start, the 2 points he gets
for ninth place today, help keep Scuderia Ferrari within
4 points of second place in the Constructors’ table,
even if the Italian team has slipped back to fourth
place.
The race was won by Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren, the
Englishman taking his second victory of the season. It
was hardly surprising, as he had been quickest all
weekend. Behind him on the podium came the two Lotus,
Kimi Raikkonen getting the better of team-mate Romain
Grosjean with a spirited passing move in the later part
of the race.
When the lights went out, the first start was aborted as
Michael Schumacher stalled his Mercedes on the grid,
bringing the actual race distance down to 69 laps.
Second time round and Hamilton led from pole, followed
by Grosjean, with Button passing Vettel for third.
Fernando moved up one place to sit behind the German Red
Bull driver, as the Spaniard had managed to pass
Raikkonen. Seventh was Webber in the other Red Bull,
followed by Senna for Williams and then Felipe who had
dropped a couple of places to ninth in the early stages.
Lap 6 and Fernando had dropped well back from the lead
four, being keen to look after his Option tyres in the
early stages and had Raikkonen’s Lotus less than a
second off his tail, while Felipe was chasing fellow
Brazilian Senna for eighth spot. Vergne in the Toro
Rosso was the first to pit for a normal tyre stop,
coming in from 16th on lap 12. Button brought the
McLaren in from third on lap 15, followed down pit lane
by Hulkenberg and Maldonaldo. Senna came in on 16, which
moved Felipe up one place to sixth, with Rosberg also
coming in on this lap. Vettel and Fernando came in to
the pits in close succession on lap 17, the Ferrari man
switching to the Medium Pirelli tyre. Next time round,
Hamilton changed tyres promoting Grosjean to the lead,
as Felipe also made his tyre change on this lap. Lap 18
and Fernando had found himself ninth stuck behind Perez
in the Sauber as Grosjean pitted the Lotus, leaving his
team-mate Raikkonen and Red Bull’s Webber in first and
second, as they had yet to pit. On lap 20, Fernando
fought his way past the Mexican, as Raikkonen came in
for Softs and Webber for Mediums.
The run of pit stops had not worked in the Scuderia’s
favour, as Fernando found himself dropped to sixth
behind Raikkonen and Felipe was ninth behind Senna. But
there were different strategies at play, as Hamilton in
the lead was on the Medium, with Grosjean second on
Soft, followed by Button on Medium, with Vettel and
Raikkonen on Soft, while Fernando was on the Medium.
With 25 laps gone, Fernando was trailing the Finn in the
Lotus by 6.1 seconds and had 1.1 in hand over seventh
placed Webber.
On lap 30, it was again Vergne who started the second
run of pit stops. Running the softer tyre, at this point
Grosjean had closed to within 0.9 of a second of leader
Hamilton. Button pitted on 32 from fourth, fitting the
Softs. This promoted Fernando to fifth. Vettel pitted
from fourth for a second time on lap 38 and next time
round it was Grosjean bringing the Lotus in from second
and Webber from fifth in the Red Bull. Race leader
Hamilton came in on lap 40, so that Raikkonen was the
temporary leader with Hamilton having had enough of an
advantage to still be running second ahead of Fernando
in the F2012. Behind the Ferrari man were Grosjean and
Vettel, followed by Senna, Button and Massa in eighth,
which became seventh when Senna pitted on lap 42. At
this point, only Raikkonen and the two Ferraris had not
made a second stop out of the top ten runners. That
changed when Fernando took on another set of Mediums on
lap 43, with Felipe following him down pit lane on the
same lap. However, in this run of stops, Fernando’s
closest rival in the Drivers’ classification, Mark
Webber, had managed to get ahead of the Spaniard.
At the head of the field, Raikkonen had built up a lead
of around 14 seconds over Hamilton as he pitted on lap
45. When he came out of pit lane, his team-mate Grosjean
was right alongside him, the two men appearing to touch
wheels as they fought their way round Turn 1 with the
Finn getting the better of it to run second, 4.4 behind
Hamilton. Button was the first of the front runners to
make a third and final stop which dropped him to seventh
one place behind Fernando, just 0.7s behind. With 15
laps remaining, the action was hotting up at the front,
as Raikkonen appeared to be closing on Hamilton, lapping
faster on fresher rubber.
Running on the Soft tyre meant Webber had to make a
third stop on lap 56 which now promoted Fernando to
fifth place, 1.2 seconds ahead of Button’s McLaren,
leaving Webber eighth, one spot ahead of Felipe. The
Scuderia’s two stop strategy had proved the best way of
marking Webber and getting ahead of him. When Vettel had
to do the same, he came out of pit lane just centimetres
in front of Fernando, who even managed to get alongside
the Red Bull for a moment, but in the end he could not
overtake the German and in fact he then had worry about
Button who was now only half a second behind on fresher
rubber. From here to the flag, there were no significant
changes: behind the podium trio, Vettel in the clearly
faster Red Bull finished ahead of Fernando. Jenson
Button was sixth, followed by Bruno Senna, Webber and
Felipe, while Nico Rosberg took the last point for tenth
in the Mercedes.
The teams are now allowed to work for a week either side
of a two week compulsory summer shutdown, before the
fight resumes at the cooler and probably more exciting
surroundings of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
Twelve
points for Scuderia Ferrari at the end of a weekend that
was far from easy in terms of being competitive on
track. Fernando Alonso finished fifth and Felipe Massa
was ninth. Nevertheless, this result was enough for
Fernando to increase his lead over his closest
challenger in the Drivers’ classification to forty
points. Felipe Massa is still fourteenth and the
Scuderia drops to fourth in the Constructors’
Championship, albeit only a minimal four points behind
the second placed team.
Stefano Domenicali: “Definitely a case
of the glass being half full! Fifth place for Fernando
has allowed him to extend his lead in the
classification, which is a very important achievement on
a weekend in which we definitely did not have the
performance to fight with the best. It was a very hard
race, decided for the most part by grid positions and
the start, with the only variables concerning tyre
degradation and the different strategies adopted. I
think that, as far as the latter is concerned, we made
the right choices, which resulted in Fernando getting
ahead of at least two cars that were quicker than his.
In fact, it was the start that had a negative effect for
Felipe: the places he lost then could not be made up,
despite having a race pace that matched those ahead of
him. As I said at the start, the outcome of this weekend
is not a negative one, but clearly we need to look
closely at the way the weekend went as a whole to
discover the reasons why we were not as competitive as
in the last few races. Now we still have a week of work
before the summer break: there’s a lot to do to reduce
the performance gap and to be as well prepared as
possible for the last two races still to be run in
Europe. At Spa and Monza we will race in very different
conditions and at very different tracks to Budapest, so
anything can happen. It will be important to be ready
for every eventuality. We will be able to take a
breather for a few days, but I’m sure all our guys have
just one thought in mind…”
Fernando Alonso: “It’s a positive
result, no doubt about it. We knew this would be a
complicated weekend because we were not quick enough,
but despite everything, we managed to extend our lead
over Webber. In terms of the championship it has
therefore been a very good weekend. To have finished
ahead of one Red Bull and right behind the other in
these circumstances was very important because, on
paper, we should have expected to finish seventh.
Hamilton was out of our reach this weekend, but we did
not lose much ground to Vettel and these are in my
opinion, the strongest of the group that’s behind me in
the championship. We made the right strategic choices:
it’s true I lost a bit of time behind Perez and this
cost me a place to Raikkonen, but the Finn was probably
out of reach this afternoon. We have a lead of forty
points, courtesy of a car that has not been the best in
this first half of the season. Now we must try and make
a good leap forward in terms of performance to allow us
to keep the lead in the Championship, because in the
long term, what we have now will not be enough. If we
are where we are, it’s because we have always made the
most of what we had and because of an excellent
reliability record: it’s not by chance that you get 23
consecutive points finishes. July has been a tough and
stressful month, with three races and a lot of work at
the factory. Now I want to take a break for a bit and
fully recharge the batteries, to show up again in Spa in
perfect shape, in the hope that the second part of the
season is as positive and productive as the first one.
There are five weeks to rest and work, looking to the
future, starting with two very demanding races at Spa
and Monza.”
Felipe Massa: “My race was ruined at
the start, when I spun the wheels, possibly because the
clutch had overheated: that cost me two places which I
then never managed to make up. Overtaking is really
difficult at this track and, even if at some points in
the second stint, I was stronger than Webber and Senna,
I never managed to get the slightest chance to pass
them. Therefore, this has not been a great race for me,
but at least I managed to bring home a couple of points.
At Silverstone and Hockenheim, our pace was a match for
the best, but that was not the case here and this
definitely made the whole weekend difficult. This first
part of the season has definitely not been very positive
for me, although today I certainly feel better than at
the start and I’m sure the second half will be better.
My contract? Until the situation is not clear, there’s
nothing to say! I’m concentrating on doing well in the
next races and that is my number one aim.”
Pat Fry: “It was a very difficult
weekend, in which we were never able to fight on equal
terms with the best. In fact, we know we have definitely
not been the quickest in the first half of the season
and so it was hard to imagine that we could have been
here. At the Hungaroring, grid position and the start
have a significant effect on the final outcome, because
overtaking, despite the recent introduction of DRS, is
still rare and difficult. Although Fernando started on
the dirty side of the track, he still managed to make up
one place by the end of the opening lap, first by
defending at the start and then by attacking at Turn 2.
Unfortunately, Felipe did not manage to make the most of
being on the clean side of the grid and now we have to
work out why that happened. Clearly that meant from then
on, the Brazilian’s race was an uphill struggle, which
was a shame as he still showed he had a good pace over a
long stint. Fernando delivered his usual nice race
which, partly down to the strategy, allowed him to keep
his closest rival in the championship behind him, as
well as getting ahead of one of the cars that had
started ahead of him on the grid. We had two options –
two or three stops – but we saw that degradation was not
that bad, which meant that with Fernando, we were able
to overtake at least two of the three top cars that had
gone for the more aggressive strategy. We still lack
performance and we must push even harder on developing
the F2012 if we want to fight all the way to the end to
reach our goals. We still have a week of work before
taking a breather, but the fact we can pack Fernando off
on holiday with a forty point lead is no reason to
relax, quite the opposite in fact. There’s a lot of very
strong competition who are just waiting for us to drop
the ball and it’s down to us to disappoint them.”
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