Hamilton starts Hungary weekend on top, Button second

Lewis Hamilton was the man to beat during the first practice session in Hungary, as the teams and drivers looks toward a well-deserved month long summer break before re-starting the season at Spa on September 2nd.

Jenson Button, who finished 2nd in todays´first session a tenth down, said on Wednesday that they are now back in the hunt, after a huge improvement in Germany due to an upgrade to the car that paid off.

“The result in Germany puts us right back in the hunt,” Button said. “In that situation, there’s nothing better than a back-to-back weekender: you return to the cockpit almost before you’ve unpacked your bags from the previous race, so it’s great to carry forward that momentum.

“There’s every reason to believe we can get another good result this year. Our pace at Hockenheim gives us cause for encouragement.”

Button finished 3rd in the race, but was promoted to 2nd after Sebastian Vettel received a post-race 20-second penalty, for his late race overtaking move on Button, where Vettel left the track to overtake the Briton.

McLaren have been very good in the practice sessions, but a string of bad luck, retirements, poor pit-stops and a scramble to find pace, has left Hamilton in 5th place with 92 points and Button in 7th with just 68. The team is still 3rd in the constructor’s championship, but has Lotus breathing down their necks, one single point behind.

3rd place finisher today was Fernando Alonso, who comes into the Hungarian Grand Prix on a high, after winning the German GP last weekend, 4th was Nico Rosberg, who held on for 3rd for some time, after taking it away from team mate Michael Schumacher, who finished in 6th, behind Grosjean in 5th. Felipe Massa ended his session in 7th, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez in the final top ten spot.

Pastor Maldonado ended his session in 11th ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, Mark Webber, Paul Di Resta and Sebastian Vettel 15th. Then we have the Toro Rosso drivers with Daniel Ricciardo leading Jean-Eric Vergne, Jules Bianchi 18th for Force India, as Vitaly Petrov goes 19th for Caterham. Charles Pic is 20th ahead of Heikki Kovalainen, then Timo Glock, Pedro de la Rosa and Dani Clos.

Hungary HOT/NOT

Jenson Button took his second win of the season, and underlined that the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber can be beaten.

I will go straight to the business this time, and though my list doesn´t agree with you, feel free to comment on it or to post your own suggestions.

HOT:

Jenson Button: The Frome Flyer took the bulls by the horns, showcasing his supreme skills in a race with changing conditions and no clear winner until the end. After Lewis Hamilton stole the lead from Vettel, the McLaren´s looked to be set for a 1-2, their first this season and it could be their first since Canada 2010. But alas, a tyre strategy that went wrong for Hamilton, paired with a drive through penalty for him, ended his race in fourth place. Jenson picked up the lead and took it home for the team. His smooth driving style is a pleasure to watch. I predict the rest of the season to be closer than the first half, with both Jenson and Lewis picking up several wins.

Paul Di Resta: Seventh place finisher Paul Di Resta is making every Scot proud these days. He started his first season by scoring a point in Australia, then took another point in Malaysia. Since then its been pretty quiet around Di Resta, but he has scored some very decent finishes, though not in the points, considering he is a rookie. In Hungary he scored seventh, picking up 6 points, and he has out-performed team-mate Adrian Sutil on five occasions. That´s a massive pass, if there ever was one.

Sebastien Buemi: Sure I could award Vettel with this one for picking up second, but I just can´t stand how his face looks after not winning. Its one of utter disappointment. He is a brilliant driver, but needs to take it with a smile sometimes. Buemi gets this one because he has had a difficult season. He has so far failed to impress me at all this season, same goes for Jaime Alguersuari, though the Spaniard is showing sparks of brilliance from time to time. Toro Rosso is far away from the performance they want, Buemi´s drive on Sunday could give the Swiss driver a little breathing space, now that we head into four weeks of F1 drought. At least  the team is not performing as horrible as the Williams team…

NOT:

McLaren-Mercedes: I know what you´re thinking. With Jenson Button winning and Lewis Hamilton coming fourth, how can they suddenly appear on the NOT-list? There is still a long way to go, before the McLaren-Mercedes team can become proper championship contender this season. Winning here and there, retire three times in a season and ending up collecting too many penalties, is costing the team. There are 7 points from 1st to 2nd, that´s a lot and it stings like a mother… Fighting for 4th place finishes is also costing dearly, there is a huge gap of 13 points every time the McLaren duo sees Vettel taking a win and they are picking up what´s left.

Renault: It looked so promising the way Renault stated their campaign this year. Two third places in two races, then some 7th and 8th places, but then things just started to go really wrong for the team. Heidfeld´s car have caught on fire twice, once in practice in Spain, and once on Hungary during the race on Sunday. It does seem that the blown-floor-off-throttle nonsense is overheating the bodywork, causing this, but it makes me wonder if Renault is focusing too much on getting as much out of the cars as possible, instead of concentrating on reliability. They could have been 6th and 7th respectively, and not 8th and 9th. the gap to the top 5 is huge, with Felipe Massa only scoring roughly half of the points of Jenson Button. I think Renault has two strong drivers, but if they can´t deliver a good car, then they should forget this years campaign and focus on 2012.

Virgin: This makes it three teams on the NOT-list, first time ever. I don´t underdtand the purpose of having the Marussia Virgin cars driving around the way they do, there is no racing element in them at all. Sure all beginnings is hard, and all that, but even though I am against switching drivers mid-way, like other teams are doing, they should take a closer look and determine if they indeed have the right crew to undertake such a massive task. Timo Glock have just extended  his contract, which puzzles me, to say the least. He has never shown anything worth a mention, and I am sure fans of Glock will now make crucifixes and chant out the Devil´s name in order to have me “wacked”, but just because he won GP2 in 2007, doesn´t mean he automatically is the new favorite flavour coming out of Germany. He is wasting his time and the team is wasting their energy. On D´Ambrosio – by the way, the most annoying name to type in F1 ever – hasn´t impressed me at all either, and I am sorry to say he probably wn´t be in F1 next year.

Delighted Di Resta celebrates best ever finish

After scoring a couple of points in the two first races of the season, Paul Di Resta secured an impressive seventh place finish in Hungary on Sunday, notching up another six points to his tally.

Paul Di Resta is one of the young rookies who are impressing this season, along with Sergio Perez, with whom he is equal in points. The Scottish driver had a good race, enjoyed a good start from 11th on the grid to a point-scoring position, and though he dropped down a bit during a pit-stop, Di Resta was able to cut through his opponents and took home six points, in this his best performance so far.

“I’m very happy with the seventh place today,” Di Resta said. “It was quite a mixed race with rain at the beginning, but I made a good start and felt comfortable in the conditions. Then it was a matter of which tyres to choose.

“We went to Super Softs for the middle two stints and then ended the race on the Primes (harder, Soft compound). We lost track position at the last stop, but I was able to pick through the cars and get back up to seventh place in the final few laps.

“Finishing seventh is the best way to respond after a series of races where, for various reasons, we didn’t get the results that were possible. So it’s nice to go into the summer break with a smile on my face, having scored points that are so important for our position in the championship.”

Di Resta has out-performed team-mate Adrian Sutil on five occasions this season, despite the German driver leading the points-race with 18 points.

Button takes win at 200th race

Jenson Button celebrated his 200th race of his career, by winning on the same circuit where he took his very first win in 2006.

After a thrilling Grand Prix at the Hungaroring, Jenson Button took the win ahead of Sebastian Vettel and third placed Fernando Alonso. Lewis Hamilton took fourth ahead of Mark Webber.

Rain came and went, first the track was wet and the drivers started on intermediate tyres, but after the track dried, there was a hurry to switch to soft slick tyres. Lewis Hamilton was looking to take the win, but a tyre strategy that didn´t work out and a penalty, meant that he had to settle with fourth.

A complete race report is almost impossible, as there was so much action to watch, but everyone in the top ten were fighting like you have never seen before. Webber was battling with Hamilton, with Massa, with everyone and eventually his fifth place, just 4/10 behind Hamilton, was a close but no cigar. Felipe Massa also enjoyed a strong performance today, but seemed to settle for a spot outside the top 5 around the half-way mark.

Paul Di Resta finishes 7th, collecting 6 points and Sebastien Buemi makes it into the top ten for the second time this season, picking up 4 points. Nico Rosberg battled hard for some time to stay in fourth, then fifth, but ninth is not where he wants to be. Jaime Alguersuari finished tenth, scoring a single point.

Pos Driver Team Time
 1.  Button        McLaren-Mercedes           1h43:42.337
 2.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +     3.588
 3.  Alonso        Ferrari                    +    19.819
 4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           +    48.338
 5.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    49.742
 6.  Massa         Ferrari                    +  1:17.176
 7.  Di Resta      Force India-Mercedes       +     1 lap
 8.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
 9.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +     1 lap
10.  Alguersuari   Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +     1 lap
11.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +     1 lap
12.  Petrov        Renault                    +     1 lap
13.  Barrichello   Williams-Cosworth          +    2 laps
14.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +    2 laps
15.  Perez         Sauber-Ferrari             +    2 laps
16.  Maldonado     Williams-Cosworth          +    2 laps
17.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    4 laps
18.  Ricciardo     HRT-Cosworth               +    4 laps
19.  D'Ambrosio    Virgin-Cosworth            +    5 laps
20.  Liuzzi        HRT-Cosworth               +    5 laps

Vettel wipes the floor with his rivals

It´s getting tedious to start every qualifying report with the words “Sebastian Vettel managed to….” But today in Hungary, there is every reason to celebrate for the young champion, as he took his eighth pole of the season in a commanding style, that completely left everyone in the paddock utterly in shock.

The form the Red Bulls have shown during the practice sessions, haven´t been as impressive as we are used to this season, with Vettel and Webber finishing 2 and 4 in Fp1, 5 and 4 in FP2, and 1 and 4 in the final practice. And in Q1 the drivers were 3 and 6, Q2 had Webber faster, as he finished 3 with Vettel 4, but in the last shoot-out, everything just came together.

With KERS not working properly, Vettel only being able to fire it on the first lap, and Adrian Newey inspecting the rear wings, it looked is if the Red Bulls might be in a spot of trouble this weekend.

Fernando Alonso posed the biggest threat, and were really fast around the track, but hot on his heels were Lewis Hamilton who made P1, just after Alonso. Then Button made a good lap, which dropped Alonso, and it looked like the McLarens might make it to the front-row. But after having pitted for super soft tyres, they drivers came back out for one final fast lap, and Vettel simply made everyone drop their jaws, as he improved Hamilton´s very fast 1:19.978, by more than a tenth and secured a stunning pole. Hamilton will start from second tomorrow, ahead of team mate Jenson Button.

If you have ever wondered why Vettel is the current champion, the qualifying session today should be enough evidence.

Felipe Massa rounded up another fine day for Ferrari, as he will start in fourth place ahead of Fernando Alonso in sixth place, and then three Germans lead by Nico Rosberg ahead of Adrian Sutil and Michael Schumacher. Sergio Perez took the final spot in the top ten, his first top ten visit in qualifying.

Paul Di Resta adds another well-done to his CV, after qualifying 11th, Petrov in 12th ahead of Kamui Kobayashi, then its Nick Heidfeld, Rubens Barrichello, Jaime Alguersuari, Pastor maldonado, Sebastien Buemi, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Timo Glock, Tonio Liuzzi, Daniel Ricciardo ahead of Jerome D´Ambrosio.

Trulli hails new power steering

Jarno Trulli has slammed his previous power steering on his Lotus car all season, saying it was one of the main reasons he didn´t perform better.

During the race weekend in Hungary, the Italian driver has had a replacement of the old power steering device, and described it as a huge improvement, as “night and day.”

“The difference is night and day,” Trulli said. “It’s much, much better. I was quick all weekend, but unfortunately didn’t get it right in qualifying, as I didn’t expect to pick up so much understeer.

“I feel very confident for the rest of the weekend now. Obviously there was nothing I could gain because the power steering wasn’t ready, so I stood out (at the Nürburgring) and waited for this chance. I was more a passenger than a driver before.”

The question remains why he hasn´t improved at all, qualifying 20th behind team mate Heikki Kovalainen.

Hungary – FP3: Vettel back on top

Championship leader Sebastian Vettel clawed his way back to the top of the time sheets, as he set the fastest time of the final practice session on Saturday.

Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, both of whom have vowed to fight for the title, set blistering times during the session, and when Alonso switched to super soft tyres, his times were getting faster and faster. Soon though, it became clear that Red Bull once again had the upper hand. After having worked through the night, using one of the exceptions-curfews, Vettel took charge in the dying minutes, with a fastest lap of 1:21.168, three tenths of a second faster than Alonso.

Jenson Button finished third, almost half a second behind Vettel, but 0.006 ahead of Mark Webber in fourth. Felipe Massa, who managed to set the fastest time with less than ten minutes to go, was dropped to fifth, 9/10 behind Vettel´s time. Nico Rosberg followed in sixth, then Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher. Vitaly Petrov and Paul Di Resta finished the top ten.

1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:21.168	17
2.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	01:21.469	13
3.	Jenson Button	McLaren	01:21.639	14
4.	Mark Webber	Red Bull	01:21.645	18
5.	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	01:22.002	14
6.	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	01:22.534	22
7.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	01:22.667	14
8.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	01:23.037	19
9.	Vitaly Petrov	Lotus Renault	01:23.175	19
10.	Paul di Resta	Force India	01:23.276	18
11.	Nick Heidfeld	Lotus Renault	01:23.281	13
12.	Sergio Perez	Sauber	01:23.375	18
13.	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	01:23.626	25
14.	Rubens Barrichello	Williams	01:23.663	17
15.	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	01:23.894	17
16.	Adrian Sutil	Force India	01:23.966	18
17.	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso	01:23.998	15
18.	Sebastien Buemi	Toro Rosso	01:25.061	19
19.	Jarno Trulli	Team Lotus	01:25.141	20
20.	Heikki Kovalainen	Team Lotus	01:25.501	20
21.	Jerome d` Ambrosio	Virgin	01:26.955	20
22.	Daniel Ricciardo	HRT	01:26.991	19
23.	Timo Glock	Virgin	01:27.174	16
24.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT	01:27.713	20

Pressure on the Bulls

For the first time this season, the Red Bull team seems to be under some genuine pressure. Despite leading the championship with a massive 112 points to second placed McLaren-Mercedes, the Austrian team decided to work extra hours during the night.

In Germany last week, we saw the Red Bulls in an unusual situation, as it was the first time this season that neither of their cars were in either first or second. In fact, the race was won by Lewis Hamilton, and Mark Webber took third with Sebastian Vettel, the title defender, in fourth. This has caused the team to work extra hours in order to respond to the threat from the McLaren´s, as they have used one of their four curfew extensions.

Every team is restricted when it comes to working on the cars during a Grand Prix weekend. There is a 2am-8am time limit in which no work can be carried out, but every team has four exceptions on that rule. Red Bull used their first during the night, so they could prepare for the final practice session and the qualifying later this afternoon.

The curfew was put in place in order for the teams to fix cars if they had been damaged, so any un-expected repairs could be dealt with in time for the following session. The fact that Red Bull is using one of the curfews, shows that they will respond to the threat by McLaren, after Lewis Hamilton secured the fastest times on both practice sessions Friday.

Friday, Vettel had this to say about the performance of the team:

“It seems to be very tight. McLaren and Ferrari are very quick so I think we need to raise our game to make sure that we will find ourselves at the top as well.”

As I write this, the final practice session is halfway, and Vettel is leading the times ahead of Webber.