Hamilton resists Lotus charge for Hungarian GP win

Sunday 29th July, 2012 11:45pm
Author: SpeedCafe ©

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton has recorded his second victory of the 2012 Formula 1 season by holding a charging Kimi Raikkonen at bay in the closing stages of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Just one second separated the pair at the chequered flag after Raikkonen shot into contention with a series of quick laps at the end of an extended second stint.

The Finn jumped from fifth to second ahead of the final run to the flag, but could not find a way around Hamilton despite enjoying tyres that were five laps fresher than the McLaren’s.

Raikkonen’s Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean held onto the tail of pole-sitter Hamilton in the first two stints before taking his third podium of the season.

The Frenchman looked particularly strong in the middle phase of the race while running a second set of option tyres against a now prime-shod Hamilton, but drifted away during the final stint after being muscled wide at Turn 1 when his team-mate emerged from his final stop.

The Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber appeared set to score fourth and fifth respectively before both drivers made third pitstops in the final 15 laps. Webber, who had been struggling with a differential issue, dropped to his eventual finishing position of eighth with his stop, while Vettel resumed still placed fourth.

Fernando Alonso ran a similar two-stop strategy to the podium-getters to take fifth and a marginally extended points lead from a largely mediocre weekend for Ferrari.

Jenson Button spent the final laps stalking Alonso in sixth. The defending Hungarian Grand Prix winner ran third in the early stages after overtaking Vettel at the first corner, but lost out midrace when a switch to the three-stop option saw him spend the first seven laps of his third stint stuck behind Bruno Senna’s Williams.

Senna held out Webber in the run to the flag to record an impressive seventh, with Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg rounding out the top 10 in ninth and 10th respectively.

Michael Schumacher endured a miserable afternoon in the second Mercedes, which began with the seven-time World Champion becoming stranded on the gird, forcing the start to be aborted.

Schumacher started from pitlane, but was soon dealt a drive-through penalty for speeding on his way to the exit. The team eventually elected to retire the German’s car while running 18th with 11 laps remaining.

Narain Karthikeyan was the only driver not to be classified as a finisher – the Indian pulling his HRT off the circuit with nine to go after suffering mechanical issues.

Pastor Maldonado again found himself in the path of the stewards during the race. The Venezuelan was dealt a drive-through penalty for barging 12th placed Paul di Resta out of the way at Turn 12 in the final stint. Maldonado recovered to be just 0.8s behind the Scot in 13th at the end of the race.

See below for the full Hungarian Grand Prix result

Pos	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	69	Winner	1
2	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	69	+1.0 secs	5
3	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	69	+10.5 secs	2
4	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	69	+11.6 secs	3
5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	69	+26.6 secs	6
6	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	69	+30.2 secs	4
7	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	69	+33.8 secs	9
8	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	69	+34.4 secs	11
9	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	69	+38.3 secs	7
10	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	69	+51.2 secs	13
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	69	+57.2 secs	10
12	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	69	+62.8 secs	12
13	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	69	+63.6 secs	8
14	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	69	+64.4 secs	14
15	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	68	+1 Lap	18
16	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	68	+1 Lap	16
17	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	68	+1 Lap	19
18	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	67	+2 Laps	15
19	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	67	+2 Laps	20
20	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	67	+2 Laps	21
21	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	66	+3 Laps	22
22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	66	+3 Laps	23
Ret	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	60	+9 Laps	24
Ret	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	58	+11 Laps	17

See below for the updated championship points standings

Pos	Driver	Points
1	Fernando Alonso	164
2	Mark Webber	124
3	Sebastian Vettel	122
4	Lewis Hamilton	117
5	Kimi Räikkönen	116
6	Nico Rosberg	77
7	Jenson Button	76
8	Romain Grosjean	76
9	Sergio Perez	47
10	Kamui Kobayashi	33
11	Pastor Maldonado	29
12	Michael Schumacher	29
13	Paul di Resta	27
14	Felipe Massa	25
15	Bruno Senna	24
16	Nico Hulkenberg	19
17	Jean-Eric Vergne	4
18	Daniel Ricciardo	2
19	Heikki Kovalainen	0
20	Vitaly Petrov	0
21	Timo Glock	0
22	Charles Pic	0
23	Narain Karthikeyan	0
24	Pedro de la Rosa	0