Jenson Button won the Hungarian Grand Prix from Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, claiming victory in his 200th Grand Prix after rain thwarted what looked like a nailed on victory for Lewis Hamilton.
Though he got away cleanly, pole-sitter Vettel’s race pace simply wasn’t good enough to fend off the McLarens, with Lewis slipping past on lap five and Jenson on lap 14 after a cunningly early pit stop. But Lewis’ race fell apart on lap 47 when rain struck, causing him to spin and incur a drive-through penalty for almost obliterating Paul Di Resta as he rejoined the track.
Things got worse when, spooked by the change in conditions, McLaren called their man in for intermediate tyres. The rain promptly stopped, Lewis made another stop to change back to slicks and ended up finishing fourth. Mark Webber and Felipe Massa had comparatively quieter races in fifth and sixth, while Paul Di Resta, Sebastien Buemi, Nico Rosberg and Jaime Alguersuari also picked up points.
Phew. That was fun, wasn’t it? With four different winners from the last four races, the days when Sebastian Vettel would simply turn up, waggle his right index finger a bit then quaff some champagne seem like an entirely different season. Still, despite the shake-up, Seb’s still sitting as prettily as ever at the top of the championship – he now leads Mark Webber by a massive 85 points, meaning that, as long as he rolls it home in a points position for the rest of the season, the title’s still as good as his. The question is, though, does he deserve to win it?
Maybe we’re just being really hard to please, but we can’t put our fingers on any particularly stellar drives from him so far this season – he’s simply been very good at smashing it during qualifying and then hanging on to the lead. We’re more than happy to see Vettel win, we just wish he’d get a move on and do some overtaking, because at the moment he’s frankly even more boring to watch than when he was walking it.
And with that, we’re off to sip margaritas and run about in a park for three weeks – we’ll be back after the break to round up all the F1 news before we head to Spa on August 28. Anything else? Ah yes, here’s how they finished in Hungary:
1. Jenson Button
2. Sebastian Vettel
3. Fernando Alonso
4. Lewis Hamilton
5. Mark Webber
6. Felipe Massa
7. Paul Di Resta
8. Sebastien Buemi
9. Nico Rosberg
10. Jaime Alguersuari
11. Kamui Kobayashi
12. Vitaly Petrov
13. Rubens Barrichello
14. Adrian Sutil
15. Sergio Perez
16. Pastor Maldonado
17. Timo Glock
18. Daniel Ricciardo
19. Jerome d’Ambrosio
20. Vitantonio Liuzzi
21. Heikki Kovalainen (DNF)
22. Michael Schumacher (DNF)
23. Nick Heidfeld (DNF)
24. Jarno Trulli (DNF)