After a tricky, long qualifying session on Saturday in Hungaroring, it was Nico Rosberg who, with an unexpected last flying lap, stole pole position from his teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton at the very last moment.
This is the second blow Hamilton has took championship-wise in this week, and the first one on track, as Nico wrapped up negotiations with Mercedes and signed a new contract with the team during the week, thus adding pressure on Hamilton at an important stage of the championship.
Looking to set things straight on track, Hamilton topped the timesheets on the first practice on Friday, however he would be unable to do so in the remaining two practices sessions.
The weekend was not going according to the plan for Lewis, as he only barely got into Q3. Things looked set to be turned around in the last qualifying session, as he stood a top of the standings, enter Nico Rosberg.
Nico's pole was highly debated, due to the fact that only a minute earlier, Fernando Alonso had spun out of track, thus bringing out yellow flags (damaging Hamilton's last lap), despite of this Nico maintained the pace and eventually went on to set a lap 0.190 seconds faster than Hamilton's, leaving the Briton upset.
At the moment it was unclear whether that sector was still yellow flagged as Rosberg went through it but after race direction's investigation, no penalty came out of it and the German kept the first slot of the grid.
Hamilton has won at this track on four other occasions, a fifth time was very likely at the start of the weekend, but with Rosberg on pole and with the low overtaking opportunities the Hungaroring offers, the start would have to be an important role in the race, if either of the two were to take the win home.
And so it was...
The very reason for this is still unknown but at the start, Rosberg suffered a slight setback, which allowed Hamilton to get his car right next to Rosberg's in the straight and to enter the first corner in the inside, slipping into first place.
Rosberg's qualifying efforts vanished in less than 500 meters.
To add up to the excitement, the Silver Arrows were escorted by both Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen in the second row of the grid. Ricciardo took advantage of Rosberg's slower start to follow Hamilton into the inside of turn one to overtake Nico for the second spot. Meanwhile, Verstappen was forced to go through the outside, as Rosberg filled the middle lane of the corner.
Behind them, Sebastian Vettel approached his fellow German Rosberg at turn one but nothing came out of it as both Nico and Max out-sped him before the next corner.
In the rest of the pack, things went on normally, only a few switching of positions but fortunately no serious incidents in the almost hairpin-like first turn.
Rosberg, desperate to not allow Hamilton to run away with the lead, took almost no time in overtaking Ricciardo and move on to his next target. It might've been a little bit too late at that point though, as Hamilton had already amassed a 1.5 second lead by the team the DRS had been enabled, avoiding a potential charge from Nico in the first two straights.
Behind the two leaders, neither of the Red Bulls moved from their positions, Ricciardo was safe from Verstappen, in third, while the Dutchman had left behind Vettel, who was struggling with pace, 5 seconds behind Max. Further down the grid, Vettel's teammate Räikkönen tried to make a recovery from a poor qualifying which saw him eliminated on Q2 at fourteenth place, aiming for a long first stint the Finn started the race on soft tyres, later he reached the top 10 of the race after 13 laps, having endured a couple battles on track with Gutierrez, Perez, Grosjean and Nasr.
Back at the front, Hamilton made an easy job to stretch his lead. Still, Rosberg's ability to keep up with the leader's pace and to set similar lap times to Lewis', meant that Hamilton's gains were only moderate, as he was only able to lead for as much as 2.5 seconds but no more than that.
In some laps Lewis would be the faster one, in some others it'd be the other way, overall Nico was unable to consistently cut seconds off his teammate's lead as their tyres' condition and their pace were very similar.
The first of the front runners to pit were Red Bull, as they called in Ricciardo in lap 16, seeking to cover themselves from a possible undercut attempt from Vettel.
His teammate Verstappen pitted only a couple laps later, and while Ferrari's attempt at undercutting Ricciardo did not work, it did with Verstappen.
Not only Max came out behind Vettel but also closely behind Räikkönen, who was yet to stop and on older tyres, no big challenge for him, using a fresh set of softs.
However, Max found himself lap after lap trying to get past the Finn. This went on until lap 30, when Ferrari finally called Kimi into the boxes.
While the rest of the drivers who started in softs made the move to mediums to try a one-stop strategy, Ferrari put Kimi on supersofts, brought him out on seventh place just behind Alonso, whom Räikkönen passed with ease. Then the Finn set his focus on his next target, Verstappen.
By lap 19, both Mercedes had made their switch to softs, Hamilton lost some time in the process as Rosberg came out only 1.2 seconds behind Hamilton, with Lewis' out lap had been a bit slow.
As the Merc continued to cruise through the race in first and second place, Daniel Ricciardo discretely made advances on them from third place, reducing the gap that had been set in the previous stint.
Mercedes' reaction to Daniel's pace was speculated by many, with a possibility being issuing a team order to allow the quicker driver (who at that moment was Rosberg) through in order to protect the first place, given that Hamilton was struggling with pace, while Rosberg was close by but unable to get past Lewis due to the dirty air in front of him. The team order's purpose would've been to allow the faster Nico to go on into the lead with clean air, to put more space between him and Ricciardo, in case the Aussie ended up passing Hamilton.
Eventually, all of that was just a hypothetical situation, as Mercedes instead took the decision to urge Hamilton to bring the pace up, which worked out as Lewis once again stretched his lead on Rosberg.
This coincided with a sudden stoppage of Ricciardo's advances on the Merc, bringing the race's rhythm to something similar to what we saw in the opening stages of the race.
In another attempt to undercut the Mercedes drivers, Red Bull brought Daniel Ricciardo to the pits in lap 35.
With this, Mercedes' strategical decision was again a speculation, with Rosberg being brought into the pits before Hamilton to cover from the Red Bull driver, possible advantages for Nico included, being one of the likely paths to take.
The Aussie came out red hot, charging on the two leaders, taking sizable pieces off the gap to Rosberg, bringing it down to 20 seconds, almost enough to make the undercut move stick with Nico, however Merc decided to stick with their conventional strategy and brought Hamilton and Rosberg into the pits on laps 41 and 42, respectively, with Sebastian Vettel following Hamilton's path hoping to undercut Ricciardo.
That strategic move by the German squad meant that Ricciardo wasted the best of his fresher tyres on his first out laps, preparing for when the Mercedes cars pitted in the next few laps.
Not only the gamble by Red Bull and Ricciardo missed its objective but due to the tyres wearing off in the first out laps, Daniel experimented losses in the gap to Rosberg and also put his third place in risk, as he could come under attack from Vettel later on.
While fifth placed Räikkönen made his final stop, falling to sixth behind Verstappen and ready hunt him down, at the front the race got a whole lot more interesting.
After the pit stop, Rosberg's slower stop made him come out 4.2 seconds behind Hamilton, a gap that would be reduced to only 2.2 seconds in less than 5 laps, the reason? The front runners had reached the back markers, thus Hamilton and Rosberg were forced to go through the traffic for a few laps, still Hamilton took the worse part as he had to go through it in narrower parts of the circuit, whilst Rosberg did so at easier sections.
After they had reached the second section of traffic, 0.6 seconds was all that was left of Hamilton's lead, in part due to a distracted Esteban Gutierrez who only made room for Lewis until arriving to the main straight.
Following Rosberg's inability to take advantage of Lewis' woes to pass him, the current world champion easily pulled the gap up to 1.5-2.2 seconds once again, making things harder for Nico with only 15 laps to go.
As expected, both Vettel and Räikkönen reached their respective targets (Ricciardo and Verstappen) by lap 55, while Seb did small advances on the Aussie lap by lap, Kimi made use of the late charges that have characterized his performances this year and was right on Max's tail from lap 57 onwards.
Räikkönen lacked a small bit of speed in the straight to get past Verstappen but he would always have a second chance at the DRS zone between turn one and two, a part of the circuit where he almost made the move on Verstappen, who fiercely and barely legally defended the spot, by changing direction right at the middle braking zone, an unsafe move about which Ferrari's driver would express his disapproval through the radio.
The move caused a slight contact between the two, which broke a side part of Räikkönen's front wing, the Finn still stayed out on track.
Kimi would be presented with another clear chance to take fifth place, this time at turn one, however Max, who was initially in the outside of the corner, aggressively switched back to the inside after noticing the car behind, another move criticized by many.
Räikkönen would try his hand at the move on the straight every single lap from that point until the end of the race, but it was just not enough.
Meanwhile, Vettel made a decent approach on Ricciardo but did not quite get on DRS range of him until the last three laps, and by that moment it was already too late to set an attack, which is why Seb had to settle for 4th place.
Back at the front, the excitement was reignited when both leaders had to go once against through traffic, reducing the gap, furthermore Hamilton made a mistake on turn 12, running off track and losing a lot of time, which brought the gap down to only 0.5 seconds, giving Rosberg one last chance of snatching the win from his teammate.
However in the end, Hamilton showed his skills at the Hungarian circuit and put the gap back in 1.5 seconds, a gap that'd last until the end.
Another win for Hamilton, more importantly a third consecutive one, with which he ties his teammate Rosberg in wins this season.
The victory today helps Hamilton seize the lead of the championship for the first time in 2016.
The man has been almost unbeatable in European soil, only missing out on the top step of the podium in Spain and Azerbaijan.
Needless to mention the mental impact the last three Grand Prix have had on the championship battle.
Nico Rosberg screwed over a great chance to win today, only by a small mistake in the start. Not only did he miss out on the opportunity to win and to keep the championship lead, but also on the chance to have a great sent off into the summer break, considering the possibility of him stringing today's win and a win in seven days at his home race.
However, he can head into the mid point of the season on a positive note if he ends up completing at least the win at Hockenheim.
The race there will be of great importance, as it marks the end of the first half of the season and its outcome is likely to give a picture of how the championship battle might end. It's going down to the wire, that's the only thing assured as of now.
Who knows, even Nico can end the first part of the season just the way he ended the 2015 season (with a win), setting the stage for a start of the second half similar to the start to the season he had earlier this year.
With Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen both beating their respective opponents in the race, Red Bull have now positioned themselves just one point behind Ferrari in the constructors championship.
They have now out scored their main championship rival in the last three races, the next one in Germany will prove pivotal as it'll serve to see who heads into the summer on the better form, therefore Ferrari need to get their game on. Today they did not struggle much from the lack of pace but rather from their woes on Saturday, with Sebastian's poor and Kimi's poorer qualifying performances.
Furthermore, the Ferrari drivers did have the pace to get past their rivals on the race, but they were just unable to capitalize on their efforts, probably due to the low overtaking opportunities in the circuit and the short DRS zones.
On the other hand, Red Bull was lucky that Ricciardo was able to hold on to third place after their failed gamble.
Behind Räikkönen, in seventh place, Fernando Alonso sealed a strong, bittersweet race for McLaren.
The team collected an important 6 points in the race but at the same time, saw the opportunity of scoring even more points vanished as Jenson Button suffered an hydraulic problem early on.
Still, their performance in qualifying and in free practices is a good sign that the team's nightmares are soon to be over, as the Woking based squad is has been establishing itself amongst the midfielders in the last few races. It'll be interesting to see what they can do in the second half of the season.
Right behind his countryman, Carlos Sainz Jr. again brought home the strongest result for Toro Rosso.
Not only this is his third consecutive points finish, but more peculiarly his third consecutive 8th place finish.
After McLaren's decent result today, it was good for Toro Rosso to gather a few points to stay safe in sixth place in the constructors standings.
As Kvyät has not quite been on a good form since being dropped from Red Bull with only one points scoring finish since the Russian Grand Prix, and that one being in Spain, nearly two months ago, Sainz has had to undertake the role of the number one driver in the team after Verstappen's departure, a job which he has done convincingly.
Following Felipe Massa's accident in qualifying and consequent weak result (18th), Valtteri Bottas was left with the task of earning at least a few points for Williams.
The Finn got the job done discretely, only being able to bring the car home in the same position in which he started.
Williams got lucky this time, as their championship rival's main man (Perez) was unable to score points for his team due to an issue I'll discuss in the next paragraph, and with Hulkenberg losing two positions on race to earn only one point.
While it was only a single point, it must be a little bit of a relief for Nico Hulkenberg to score points for the second consecutive race, a good result for him heading into an important weekend for him, where he is expected to continue this good run.
Force India's points harvest in this race could've been a lot better had it not been for the terrible mistake they committed during the race, Sergio Perez was doing a great job in recovering from a bad qualy, running in points scoring positions, with a promising one stop strategy, when his pit crew was not yet ready to receive him when he arrived at the boxes, resulting in a huge time loss which deemed the strategy's gains useless as the Mexican was pushed back on the standings. Despite his efforts in the latter part of the race, he only got as close as eleven place.
Last but not least, a special mention out to Renault's Jolyon Palmer, who had one of the best performances of his career, running close to the point scoring positions and rising to tenth place after Esteban Gutierrez's penalty. Unfortunately he would spin off in the very next lap.
That's it for this race recap! Hope you enjoyed it!
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