As the drivers huddled in a circle ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, their solidarity was evident and their focus couldn’t have been fiercer. Sadly the story on the track was a very different one.
In a repeat of their start at Silverstone, Mercedes were slow off the line and surrendered the lead to their nearest rivals. Unlike the British Grand Prix their cages were severely ratted, particularly Lewis Hamilton, who made a desperate attempt to overtake his teammate that cost him a swag of positions.
Unfortunately he didn’t learn his lesson, and after locking up he slid into the charging Daniel Ricciardo. Hamilton was handed a penalty and his hopes of victory were dashed.
“What did you apologise to the team for?” he was asked afterwards.
“The race,” he replied.
“The whole race?”
“Yep.”
His wingman didn’t fair quite so badly, but the decision to finish the race on the slower tyres was an error. Although the team claimed it was a snap decision to pit his car that didn’t provide enough time to change their strategy, Rosberg had earlier told the team that he preferred the medium compound rubber, partly because he’d suffered with balance issues during qualifying but mostly because he wanted to eliminate any variance between himself and Hamilton, who was behind him at the time.
Although he was within reach of Vettel near the end of the race, his position was mostly due to superior horsepower than strategy. Had he been on the faster tyres in the dying laps he could have held off the charging Ricciardo and very likely won the race. Being cautious and losing sight of the battle again cost him a chance to win the war.
Kimi Raikkonen, the man most pundits have written off, had a brilliant start, moving from fifth to second by the first corner. It was no fluke either, and until the latter stage of the race he held on to Vettel and might even have pressured him after the safety car period were it not for a terminal ERS failure.
There were some success stories, albeit unlikely ones. Despite failing to match Ricciardo at Red Bull this season, Daniil Kvyat had an effortless drive to finish in P2, while Fernando Alonso kept his nose clean and shuffled through the pack to slot into P5. He achieved this is the same car that he single-handedly pushed back to the pits during qualifying, with the same engine that audiences have described as sounding “like a wet fart”.
Disappointingly, Williams were nowhere during the race. In an ominous sign of things to come, Felipe Massa failed to correctly take his place on the starting grid and the field were forced to complete a second formation lap. When the race started they seemed to be paddling against the tide and any hope of Valtteri Bottas cruising up the pointy end of the field was ruined as his rear tyre was slashed by the front tyre of Max Verstappen.
Speaking of Toro Rosso, their decision to pit Verstappen ahead of Carlos Sainz, who had track position, has stirred the pot within the team. Perhaps they wanted to reward Verstappen who hasn’t taken a backwards step all season. This race was no different, especially behind the safety car where he found it difficult to find the brake pedal, and his enthusiasm saw him slapped with a penalty – just another sanction from a very busy stewards’ office.
Having let second place slip through his fingers, Ricciardo couldn’t even hang on to his trophy during the post-race interviews, but then again he did swig down his podium champagne like it contained the cure to Renault’s performance issues.
Finally, the less said about Maldonado’s trifecta of penalties the better.
I’m sure every driver on the track would have loved to have won the race “for Jules”, but perhaps in their pursuit of a tribute they forgot that it was level-headed driving that earned Jules his greatest F1 achievement in Monaco last year.
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