Lewis Hamilton took a commanding, lights-to-flag victory at the Hungaroring to further extend his championship lead. He now heads into the summer break with a 24-points lead over title rival Sebastian Vettel, who survived a late-race incident with Valtteri Bottas to finish second.
Hamilton and Bottas made a clean start, with Vettel passing his teammate Kimi Raikkonen for third place around the outside at Turn 2. Ferrari had opted to split strategies between its two drivers, with Vettel starting the race on soft tyres while Raikkonen, like the rest of the front runners, started on a pair of ultrasofts.
With Raikkonen heading into the pits on lap 14 of 70, and Bottas following him a lap later, Vettel started catching up to Hamilton on his more durable tyres. Hamilton pitted with a lead of over 6.0sec and fell back from Vettel initially, but then used his fresh soft tyres to close the gap to within 10sec before Vettel finally stopped with 31 laps to go. The Ferrari driver was initially on track to leapfrog Bottas after his stop but traffic, combined with a slow pit stop due to a problem with the front-left wheel, resulted in Vettel rejoining the field in third place, and crucially, behind Bottas.
Vettel spent the next 20 laps stuck behind Bottas and could not use his ultrasoft tyres to chase down Hamilton. This, in turn, allowed Raikkonen – who had made a second stop for more softs – to catch up and make it a three-car fight for second.
With just five laps remaining, Vettel pulled off a move on Bottas, passing him on the outside heading to Turn 2. Bottas braked too late as he tried to retain the place on the inside, clipped the inside kerb and hit the back of the Ferrari. He broke his front wing but Vettel somehow continued without damage or a puncture, keeping Raikkonen at bay in the process to finish a distant second behind Hamilton.
Bottas, meanwhile, had to limp his car home on significantly older tyres and front wing damage. This left him susceptible to a charging Daniel Ricciardo, who got a run on him down the start-finish straight with four laps to go. He was passing him around the outside of Turn 1 when Bottas locked up again and clattered into the side of Ricciardo’s Red Bull, damaging its sidepod in the process.
Soon after, Mercedes advised Bottas to let Ricciardo through but he argued against it. But Ricciardo was able to eventually catch up and pass Bottas for fourth place on the final lap. The stewards did hand Bottas a 10-sec penalty for his clash with Ricciardo, but that didn’t change the overall result as he had finished the race 23sec ahead of Pierre Gasly.
Ricciardo’s late race overtake gave Red Bull some consolation after Verstappen suffered a power unit problem early in the race that resulted in a retirement. Kevin Magnussen finished in seventh place, ahead of Fernando Alonso – who jumped a number of cars by extending his first stint.
Stoffel Vandoorne should have made it a double-points finish for McLaren but retired from ninth with a gearbox problem. That promoted Carlos Sainz to ninth, with Romain Grosjean rounding out the top 10 after jumping Brendon Hartley and Nico Hulkenberg with a longer first stint.
The 2018 Formula 1 season will now resume at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on August 24-26, 2018, following the summer break.
Race result
Unnatee Gidithuri
