Lewis Hamilton lands on a psychological blow while Ferrari remains on the street

Lewis Hamilton may have started the Hungarian GP in pole position after the qualifying drama of yesterday, but few expected Mercedes to beat the Ferrari, who were the favorites, even if they had to go ahead. Align on the second line. But one day when Ferrari split his strategy, Hamilton won a big win that allowed his team to win 24 points in the approach of a summer vacation. Decide what you want, it was a major psychological blow at a time when Ferrari had the fastest car.

"We knew we had to try something," admits Sebastian Vettel, so he made his first relay a durable and flexible Pirelli tire, while the other drivers preferred the fastest but most fragile ultrasoft. But when the practical directions indicated that the purple striped tires would wear out quickly, the race showed that they lasted much longer than anyone had hoped.

"That was the key," said Vettel, lying on his back foot for much of the race due to having to start from fourth place on the grid. "There was a point where for about 10 rounds Lewis ran as fast on ultrasofts as I was on the softs, when we could have expected that they would have lost their advantage. Was a major factor. "

Hamilton nodded, and said that, ironically, he had trouble on his set of soft tires, who had felt much better Friday and Saturday. These are the whims of the current situation of tires in F1.

Ferrari's best hope was to make up for the race until the first corner, but Hamilton and Valterri Bottas defended their first and second starting positions and left no opening. afterwards, they controlled the pace, as overtaking is so difficult at Hungaroring.

"The Pole was really important yesterday," admitted Hamilton. "Ferrari has shown that they are really the fastest of the last three races, so we expected them to be ahead and with the pace that they have, they would be maybe we went off, I think we were able to hang on to them at the pace we had today, but pole was very important because it gave us a crucial track position. "[19659150] Five things we learned from the Hungarian Grand Prix
"Valtteri may not be rolling as fast as he could have done," noted Vettel about the first stint, where the Finn went just fast enough to keep him out of the bottle while Hamilton went to the finish line. away. Then, especially, Kimi Raikkonen stopped as early as the 24th of 70 laps for the soft tires, followed by Bottas a lap later. Hamilton, however, continued until the 25th day and felt that it could have handled a little more. His stop left him in second place, behind Vettel, then they began an interlude of cat and mouse where the gap flickered and flowed according to the traffic.

But by the time Vettel snapped for his ultrasof on lap 39, Hamilton had reduced the gap from 13.1 to 9.5 seconds. Ferrari knew that Vettel was going to have to fight to catch him and then attack, with his rubber quicker, but they counted without much delay with the left front wheel, which meant that when he joined Vettel was also back behind Bottas

. ] For lap after lap, the Finn handled the shotgun for Hamilton, while Vettel first tried to take his time and save his tires. An intervention of the virtual safety car on Towers 51 and 52, to remove McLaren from Stoffel Vandoorne, did not have much effect, but gradually Vettel increased the pressure by seeing the overworked tires of the Mercedes start giving up their grip.

Meanwhile, Hamilton was able to open a 24.2 lead with only five laps to go. But Bottas' tires were 50 lap old and that 65th lap was when Vettel finally took the momentum to dive out into the first corner. While Bottas was running at full speed, the Ferrari driver was able to turn right and slide forward thanks to better traction down to turn 2. Then, Vettel having taken second place, Bottas dug a hole. "I was not sure that the car was fine," Vettel said. "Suddenly, I was hit from behind, but I do not blame him.He had no hold and I think he was locked up and had no nowhere to go, I was lucky to get the car, and I did not have a puncture. "

Commissioners, who included Le Mans winner, Derek Warwick, Considered a race incident.

Vettel clinched the hammer and started catching up a second better than it had been to pursue Bottas, but Finn's excellent tactical work his 67th win is still 17, 1 to good Raikkonen had caught Bottas and Vettel had punched him and also slid in front of the second Mercedes, which had suffered damage to the front fenders. But he is of course not allowed to race with his team leader, even though he was able to shadow Vettel, he did not never been more than a competitor for last place on the podium

Bottas' torment is not over, as he is then attacked by Daniel Ricciardo, who also started off with soft tires but made better use of his ultrasoft in the second stint. The Australian has reduced the advantage of Bottas in his Mercedes, now disabled, and has moved closer to the outside to enter the first corner of the 68th lap. Bottas then ran wide and the contact was made, the damage was done and more debris spread.

But Ricciardo was not done and closed again until Mercedes told their man to make the place to improve all the probable penalties to investigate the incident eventually. Even after doing this, the unfortunate Finn received a penalty of 10s that did not affect his fifth place finish.

The win, fifth in Hamilton's season, was as polite as it was unexpected, and supported the success of last weekend in Germany.

"Both were special in their own way," he said, "and the last race was one of the most special for sure, but coming this weekend, we We knew it would be a tough race, we did not know where we were going to sit, but we were hoping to be as fast as those guys. "He gestured to the Ferrari duo

" Friday is not proud pace, not long-term, but I guess He switched to another mode on Saturday, but the pole was a little surprising.

"Valtteri is the best winger and he made a great run on these tires, but n & rsquo; Unfortunately could not keep second place today. But the team has done a very good job even after these guys have made the streak in the last three races, so it 's a good move for us to win the last two races and we' re sure it 's good. go in the summer holidays with 24 points in advance.

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