Jenson Button has celebrated his 200th Grand Prix in style by winning the 2011 Hungarian Grand Prix.
The race was filled with changing weather conditions which saw all the drivers starting the race on the intermediate tyre. Pole sitter, Sebastian Vettel got a good start off the grid, leading into the first corner. Though as the race progressed, second place sitter Lewis Hamilton kept the pressure on the 2010 World Champion, until he got his chance to take the lead on lap 5 when Vettel went wide after catching the damp kerb.
Jenson Button then sitting in third, got his chance to pass Vettel a little later after he decided to pit a lap earlier than the German driver for slicks, on lap 12. This gave Jenson an advantage over Vettel, as Button already had a lap’s more experience on where the most grip was on the track with the slick, which he used to his advantage to take second place from Vettel, when the German driver emerged from the pits on his slick tyres a lap later. This let Button free to begin chasing down his McLaren team-mate, Hamilton. The two British drivers produced some great racing, as they kept interchanging position as they battled for the lead. Button finally came out victorious after a strategic error at the third round of pit-stops saw Hamilton go for the supersoft tyres instead of softs, meaning he would have to pit again, whereas, Button went for the softs, which carried him through to cross the line first.
The rain also played a part in dropping Hamilton out of contention for the win, after he spun on lap 47 and impeded Paul di Resta as he completed a donut to recover from his spin in the middle of the chicane. This incident resulted in Hamilton being handed a drive-through penalty by the stewards, after they deemed that he had forced another car off track.
After an out of sorts qualifying session for Mark Webber, which saw the Red Bull driver start Sunday’s race further down the grid than usual in 8th. The Australian driver had a tough race as like Hamilton; he fell foul to some bad tyre decisions, although he did improve on his gird position to finish fifth, and still sits second in the championship standings.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, put in another solid drive to take the final step of the podium after starting the race from fifth behind his team mate Felipe Massa for the first time in seventeen races.
Over at the Mercedes GP garage, the team had a great start to the race, with both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher getting the jump on both the Ferrari’s off the grid. Rosberg came out of the second corner 4th and Schumacher 5th. Unfortunately, however, Schumacher was forced to retire from the race with a gearbox problem, which saw him bring his car to a stop out on track. Meanwhile, Rosberg did complete the race, crossing the line 9th.
Other retirements came from both the Team Lotus cars, with both Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen being hit with mechanical issues. Trulli had an oil leak, whilst Kovalainen was forced to stop on track ten laps from the end.
However, the scariest retirement came when Nick Heidfeld’s Lotus Renault GP went on fire as he left his pit box on lap 25. He managed to bring the car to a stop at the end of the pit lane and get out unharmed. Although, as the marshals rushed to put the fire out, the side-pod of the car exploded. It looked as if the front exit exhausts overheated the bodywork causing them to set alight.
It was quite a busy day for the stewards, with a number of drivers alongside Hamilton receiving drive-through penalties for a number of different offences. Firstly, Williams’ driver Pastor Maldonado was caught speeding in the pit-lane, and then Sergio Perez was punished for overtaking under the yellow flag.
Courtesy information from f1.co.uk
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