Hungarian GP Report: Hamilton Returns To The Top

Sunday 26th July 2009

Lewis Hamilton claimed his first grand prix victory of the season in Hungary as McLaren put their early season woes behind them to return to winning ways.

Starting from fourth on the grid, the defending World Champion put his KERS to good use, easily sliding his way past his rivals and up into second place by the end of the first lap.

From there it was just a case of chasing down Fernando Alonso, which he easily did, taking the lead as the Spaniard pitted.

Alonso's pit stop, though, proved to be the Renault driver's downfall as his front right wasn't secured properly and came off on his out-lap.

With the wheel hurtling across the track, F1 proved for the second time this weekend that its safety standards still need to be improved. The damage from driving back to the pits on three wheels resulted in Alonso retiring on the next lap.

Meanwhile, with Hamilton pulling away from the chasing pack, it was left to Kimi Raikkonen and Mark Webber to settle the podium with the Ferrari driver taking second place off the Australia.

However, in yet another strange occurrence of the weekend, Raikkonen could lose his eight points as he will be investigated by the race stewards after the race for his incident with Sebastian Vettel at the very start of the race. So what were the stewards doing for 69 3/4 laps?

Nico Rosberg put in yet another solid performance for Williams, coming home in fourth place ahead of Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock. Jenson Button could only manage seventh place with Jarno Trulli completing the points.

Full report to follow...

Results
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:38:23.876
02 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 11.529
03 M. Webber Red Bull + 16.886
04 N. Rosberg Williams + 26.967
05 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 34.392
06 T. Glock Toyota + 35.237
07 J. Button Brawn GP + 55.088
08 J. Trulli Toyota + 1:08.172
09 K. Nakajima Williams + 1:08.774
10 R. Barrichello Brawn GP + 1:09.256
11 N. Heidfeld BMW + 1:10.600
12 N.Piquet Renault + 1:11.500
13 R. Kubica BMW + 1:14.000
14 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 1 laps
15 J. Alguersuari Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
16 S. Buemi Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 laps
Did not finish
17 S. Vettel Red Bull + 41 laps
18 F. Alonso Renault + 55 laps
19 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 69 laps

Source : Planet F1