After the superlative show at Silverstone, Formula One pulled off a double-header with another heart-stopper of a race in Hungary. Sebastian Vettel took his first win at the Hungaroring but only after an incident-packed ride that has, coming straight after the British Grand Prix, given the sport a burst of adrenaline.
What turned into a thriller started on a sombre note. There was a minute’s silence before the race in honour of Jules Bianchi, who died 10 days ago as a result of injuries sustained in an accident at last October’s Japanese Grand Prix. Bernie Ecclestone had flown the driver’s family on a private jet from Nice as the sport comes to terms with the first on-track driver fatality since 1994. The drivers stood in a circle on the grid, with the Frenchman’s relatives, in remembrance.
Vettel, who had been a pallbearer at Bianchi’s funeral, and the other podium finishers, Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo, dedicated their races to his memory. But they had an awful lot of work to do before they could climb the steps.
The Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg were one-two on the grid but they were positions held only for the first few corners. Vettel made a fantastic start, as did his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, and they jumped into the top two spots after another failure from both Mercedes to get off the line swiftly.
Twice in a row, after Silverstone, is something the team cannot afford and it will be of concern they cannot identify what is causing the problem.
Vettel, third on the grid, had hared off into the clean air with his Ferrari showing rejuvenated speed that was partly down to the tight nature of the Hungaroring but was also genuine race pace that had not been on show all weekend.
Raikkonen followed within a healthy couple of seconds but Rosberg, now in third but unhappy with his set-up and having made changes to his car overnight that had not helped, was consistently between three and five 10ths of a lap off the two Ferraris.
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