Formula One: Red Bull’s Mark Webber wins the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix
It was once again Red Bull that dominated the Hungarian Grand Prix, but not Sebastian Vettel but his team mate Mark Webber, who won the race to get his 4th win of the season.
Second in line was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, who was dealt a hand of luck when Sebastian Vettel was penalised by the race stewards for a safety car rule violation and he had to serve a driver through Penalty. However, Vettel still managed to finish 3rd eventually.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was 4th. It was another disappointing race for the 2 McLarens, Lewis Hamilton retired from the race early due to a gear box issue and his team mate Jenson Button could only manage the 8th spot.
The race started with Vettel on his 8th pole position in 11 races, but as it has been the case most of the time, he could not finish the race in 1st. As soon as the green lights went on, there was a fierce battle to get ahead, between Vettel, Alonso and Webber. Alonso made a good manoeuvre over Mark Webber, who had started from 2nd; Alonso was able to get the 2nd spot from Webber and pushed Vettel hard on the first corner to get the lead. Sebastian Vettel though managed to hold on, and showed why Red Bull is much better than the Ferraris when it comes to sharp turns and corners. Felipe Massa also made a good start and even though did not manage to improve his place in the race, but did well to hold on to 4th spot with all the crazy traffic at the start of the race.
Vettel meanwhile continued to surge forward and started making distance between him and Alonso. Webber who was just behind Alonso was not willing to let go of his 2nd spot and continued to hound the Spaniard. An enthralling race was in prospect that was evident from the frenetic start.
It was clear that Red Bull had the edge when it came to corners, but on long straights, it was Ferrari who was quicker. But with the Hungarian track full of twists and turns it was going to be an uphill task for Alonso to chase Vettel down or even hold on to 2nd spot with Webber at his back.
After around 30 laps one of the Toro Rosso cars blew the engine, there was smoke, and oil all over the track, immediately the safety cars came out. Vettel though seemed to have lost track and was waiting for orders from the pit lane as to what to do next. Before the safety cars had completely made their way out of the tracks, Vettel passed the safety car exit point and hence was penalised by the race stewards for breaching the safety car rule.
Vettel was furious while serving the penalty that dropped him from 1st to 3rd place as Alonso moved ahead. Meanwhile Mark Webber’s persistence paid off and he took the race lead. Webber though still was running on soft tyres and had to make a pit stop, but by the time he took the stop, he had made significant ground on Alonso and he went in and came back without losing the race lead.
Webber ended up winning the race, and regained the championship lead heading into the summer break. Mark Webber leads the table with 161 points, followed by Hamilton on 2nd with 157, Sebastian Vettel is in 3rd with 151 points, Button on 4th with 147 and Fernando Alonso moved up to 5th with 141 points.
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