2011 Hungarian Grand Prix - McLaren's renaissance continues

MASTERFUL: Button was the expert again in slippery conditions

MCLAREN’S mid-season renaissance continued at the Hungaroring yesterday.  Britain’s Jenson Button celebrated his 200^th Grand Prix start in tremendous fashion, as he recorded his second win of the 2011 season, making it back-to-back wins for the Woking team.  However, Sebastian Vettel took full advantage of errors by Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton to increase his world championship lead to 85 points.

      In very challenging circumstances in Budapest, it was Button’s brilliant ability in these conditions that excelled once again, as he has shown on many occasions in the past, not least five years earlier when he won his first Grand Prix here.  It was Vettel who held off the McLarens in qualifying and halted a ‘supposed’ mid-season slump to take another pole position.  He made a perfect start in unseasonable wet weather in Hungary, leaving the silver cars behind.  The two Ferrari’s and Mark Webber’s Red Bull all made tardy getaways, allowing the underperforming Mercedes GP cars of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher vault up into fourth and fifth places.

     As the Mercedes cars struggled to keep up with the three leaders, it was Hamilton who looked the most comfortable.  He pressured Vettel into a small error on lap five and charged by into the lead.  Quickly, the track began to dry and Felipe Massa was caught out.  At the same place where Vettel and Alonso had ran wide in the opening laps, the Brazilian fought his moment on lap nine, but it left him in a spin and a harmless kiss with the barriers.  Two laps later, Webber was the first driver to make the switch to dry tyres and his solid sector times forced all the major players to make changes shortly afterwards.

EXPLOSIVE: Heidfeld's demise was a scary, fiery moment

     Lap 25 saw a catastrophic fire, which ended the race for Lotus Renault driver Nick Heidfeld.  Heidfeld was having a bad weekend and pitted from a lonely 19^th place for his second stop of the afternoon.  A wheel nut problem at the pitstop led to oil and smoke smouldering from the car on the pit exit, spewing across the pitlane.  As the engine blew up, Nick parked the car on the grass as the fire began to take hold through the exhausts of his car, and for the second time this season too (he had a similar issue in Barcelona practice this season).  Seconds later, something else around the area, possibly the KERS battery pack on the Renault exploded as marshals attended the scene with fire extinguishers.  Luckily, nobody was seriously injured, although team boss Eric Bouillier seemed to hint that Heidfeld had been over-revving the engine before his demise, which will increase the possibility of him being replaced in the team after the summer break.

     With the possibility of a Safety Car to clear away the remains of Heidfeld’s Renault, the leaders all pitted for a second pitstop with Button using the pits to outsmart Vettel and make it a McLaren 1-2.  On lap 40, Webber was the guinea pig again, as he made the move to the prime, harder tyre.  Meanwhile, Alonso on super-soft, option tyres moved upto third, ahead of the Red Bull’s, but within seven laps, his rubber looked very second-hand.  Hamilton went in a similar direction, whilst both Button and Vettel went down the Webber route.  Meanwhile, a gearbox problem after a silly spin ended Schumacher’s day before half-distance.

     Seven laps later and Hamilton spun away his six second lead at the turn six chicane.  As he recovered, Lewis spun his rear wheels up, which forced the lapped Force India of Paul di Resta off the road to take evasive action.  The move was considered dangerous by race stewards, despite Hamilton’s claims that he couldn’t see di Resta when he started the manoeuvre.  A drive-through penalty was awarded, but by then, his race chances had already been ruined.

     A brief rain shower made grip on the slick tyres almost non-existent.  New leader Button and Hamilton enjoyed a great mini battle, swapping lead position on several separate occasions.  It gave Alonso the chance to pit and repair some of his damage, although a later spin lost him any chance of catching Button and Vettel.  Rosberg, Webber and most crucially Hamilton decided to make a gamble for intermediate tyres, but lost their initiative.  The rain quickly stopped and all three were forced to make an extra pitstop.  Plus the penalty, Hamilton was relegated to sixth, but passed Massa, whose tyres were finished on lap 60 and then, with aid from Kamur Kobayashi’s grip less Sauber, overtook Webber with six laps remaining for fourth.

     Button kept his nerve and brilliantly won from Vettel by 3.5 seconds.  On an off-day, Alonso somehow kept his Ferrari pointing in the right direction for a podium, with Hamilton, Webber and Massa ensuring that McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari dominated the afternoon.  The Force India of di Resta survived his near-miss with Hamilton to finish seventh; his first points since Malaysia and also, the Scot’s best ever finish.  Rosberg recovered to ninth in his 100^th GP start, whilst the Toro Rosso team, also in their 100^th GP celebrated the milestone with a double points finish, with Sebastian Buemi in 8^th and Jaime Alguesuari tenth.

     Sebastian Vettel took another big stride towards the title in Hungary, but Jenson Button showed his supreme skill in slippery conditions once again.  Formula One now goes on an extended summer break, with the next action at Spa in Belgium in four weeks time.