Lewis Hamilton wins the Hungarian Grand Prix

2013 Hungarian Grand Prix summary

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Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix for the fourth time in his career in an action-packed race.

He finished ten seconds ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who spent the final laps of the race under serious pressure from Sebastian Vettel. Vettel, who like Hamilton pitted three times, got alongside the two-stopping Lotus on the way into turn four at one stage but couldn’t make the move stick.

Mark Webber recovered from tenth on the grid to finish fourth, leaving it until the final stint to run the soft tyres, but wasn’t able to get into the battle for the podium.

After pushing Vettel hard in the opening stages, Romain Grosjean picked up a drive-through penalty after he was deemed to have gone off the track while overtaking Felipe Massa. He finished the race on the tail of the other Ferrari of Fernando Alonso.

Jenson Button played a major role in the race as Vettel spent a substantial part of the second stint stuck behind the McLaren, which allowed Hamilton to build up his lead. Grosjean clouted Button’s car as he came past at one point but both were able to finish.

Massa finished eighth ahead of Sergio Perez and Pastor Maldonado claimed the final point, the first of the year for Williams.

2013 Hungarian Grand Prix

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Image © Daimler/Hoch Zwei

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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41 comments on “Lewis Hamilton wins the Hungarian Grand Prix”

  1. I hope Lewis will call Jenson and give him big thank you…Still great drive for Lewis.

    1. Yep… A big thanks to button but that should not take the credit away from Lewis. Superb qualy and race.

    2. Thank Jenson for what? if i may ask. Should he thank Webber and Kimi too ? Bli-mey he may as well thank all the drivers. Lewis took his chances and made his tyres last for good measure. Seb could not (with Kimi and button). This is Racing. No one owes anybody gratitude. I am sorry, but you are better off hoping for the end of the world.
      Give Him credit because he deserves it.

    3. Why presume that if Vettel got past Button he wouldnt have won? Before the pits Hamilton was managing the gap to Vettel on the worst tyre, when the car was at its heaviest (its worst), and even after the round of pit stops, the gap (despite Jensen) remained the same when they put the better tyre on.

      As soon as Vettel got too close to Hamilton, he was having to back off to cool the car down, as we saw when he was behind a much slower Raikkonen at the end, also.

      Todays race was won at turn 1 on the first lap, when Lewis got himself out infront in clean/cooler air.

      1. With so many poles, all Lewis needs is a reliabley fast car that can make the tyres last and Vettle is in for a world of trouble for the rest of his F1 career.

        Just keep the race stewards away from hi and he’ll reign supreme,

        1. lowis can’t dominate like vettle he dosn’t have the mantel

  2. Brilliant drives from Hamilton, Raikkonen, Webber, Grosjean and Button. Grosjean really didn’t deserve that drive-trough penalty at all, that was just 100% bs. Button really played this well for Hamilton, but ofc he won’t let anyone pass for free and makes them fight, the merc straightline speed was just amazing and really helped there (and hindered Vettel).

    Let downs were Vettel and Alonso.

    1. Huh Vet a let down?, the car is for free air they always struggle more than most to overtake, nott drivers fault. Its RBull fault. Surely DOTW is Hams though Pole when he should have no right really looks crucial now and his overtaking on Webber “WITHOUT DRS” was mega. Ferrari defo going backwards as usual with them embarrassing that a team with that resource cant give Alo a good car. Bet Alo is seriously thinking of leaving, imagine next year new regs and they are still behind I would risk trying to swap with Seb. Also it could be other way round and they may be fastest but I don’t hold much hope. Alo is no yound dri now time is running out, he deserve at least 3 w
      Wtitles.

    2. How was Vettel a let down ?! He did the best possible with the car he had, he couldn’t pass neither Button or Kimi due to being so slow on the straights, and you can’t pass through the rest of the lap unless the driver ahead of you makes a mistake (i.e Button when Seb passed him) or is hindered by someone else(i.e When Hamilton got past Webber and someone else around turn 3), strategy screwed him today and I think he did the best job possible.
      As for Alonso, i didn’t follow his race, but the Ferrari is waaaaayy off pace

      1. Well, it could be stratetywise let down for Vettel, not sure how much Vettel played in that part. I know, as I commented above, the straightlinespeed was the key in this track to get past and only Merc and Ferrari had it, and Ferrari was otherwise too much off the pace so they couldn’t really utilize it in any otherway than first Massa keeping Raikkonen behind him for 15 laps at the start of the race and then Alonso keeping Grosjean behind him for 10+ odd laps for same reason. And both Lotuses were quicker elsewhere on the track but the straight. Also the mighty leap from Webber just outshone Vettel this time in my mind, because he did a really, really good job. So Vettel wasn’t actually shining and lost a place vs his starting position, hence I voted for let down.

        1. gotcha :)

    3. Real shame that such a great move was essentially nullified by 2cms, even though I understand the rule has to be clear in order to be fair. I hope this kind of penalty doesn’t discourage racers from trying this kind of thing as its so enjoyable to watch, I wooped when Grosjean completed that move. Fantastic overtaking by Lewis

  3. Great result for a fan of Lewis . He does these things rarely but when he wins , he does so spectacularly . I was on the edge when he overtook webbo . And when rosberg had the overheating ! Spectacular racing from Kimi there and he just proved why he is the ice man . Cool as Ice . As simple as that !

  4. So the only team who didn’t show up for a test involving the new tyres ends up winning the next race. How does that even work?

    1. Just tells people thinking their turnaround for Monaco was down to tyres is false.

    2. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      28th July 2013, 15:25

      @abnash because the pènalty they got is simply a joke.

    3. By making a test earlier than others and now they’re at same point as everyone else regarding testing miles? Not to mention the few races between these 2 tests where they supposedly gained x amount.

      1. But they didn’t test on those tyres in Spain….

        1. Could be, for all we know, they were different tyres, but they still got the testing miles and even if it’s different tires, there’s other things to improve also than tyreunderstanding and those races before this YDT, sudden improvement?

      2. Yeah the tyres they tested were completely different

        1. Could you provide links so then we can all confirm that?

          1. The tyres for this race are 2012 construction with 2013 rubber, they only brought these in reaction to silverstone blowouts, these are the tyres that were tested by all teams except Mercedes. Mercedes did some testing of prototype tyres for 2014 (90%) and (10%) revised 2013 tyres with Kevlar carcass like now but crucially 2013 construction which is significantly different

          2. Hope those help @lari

          3. @3dom Ok, seems like, if we’re to believe Pirelli’s saying in regards of the Merc test are true, that the tires are quite different. There’s still the other part which I brought up that I think had some impact.

          4. there’s other things to improve also than tyreunderstanding and those races before this YDT, sudden improvement?

            @lari I suppose we’ll never know if they tested anything else & gained an advantage there, it’s a possibility that’s all we can say, whether that affects there tyre usage we also will never know but still weird that the team that hadn’t tested the new tyres won the race

          5. @3dom True, it’s weird. It could be that the new tyres just suit Mercedes’ car well, because it seems it’s suiting some teams better than others. Force India seems to be the biggest struggler with new tyres for example and they attended the test ofc. Maybe Merc got lucky there :)

    4. Proves that the tyre test is as useless as it might get for the teams.

  5. Very unfair on Grosjean in a day when he drove great. Normal race contact. Disappointing

    1. 100% agree.

    2. He is showing his class now, move on jenson was a slight misjudgement but sometimes that can really cost you, and he found that out the hard way. But as he gains experience, these minor misjudgements are becoming less common, and he’s showing that he is extremely capable

    3. OmarR-Pepper (@)
      28th July 2013, 15:43

      In my opinion the penalty should have been for Button, Grosjean was going in line. And, believe me or not, I think Vettel deserved a penalty for the first lap maneuvre against Grosjean (he was near to repeat Turkey 2010)

    4. Agree very Unfair…but he did not get the penalty for that. He got it for the overtake of Massa when all 4 wheels were not on track…..

      The contact will be investigated after the race.

  6. So can anyone explain why grosjeans attack on buttons car is not being looked at until after the race but his effort to stop massa crashing in to him was given a drive through even though it happened after he hit button?

  7. Anyone else notice how much Vettel was exploiting track limits this race? It’s something I’ve been miffed about for a while now. All the drivers do it but none more so than Vettel in my opinion and he never seems to get called out for it. Seemed like he was almost constantly on the astroturf and on top of or outside the white lines with all four wheels, especially in his last stint chasing down Raikkonen.

    1. To be fair the only driver I can remember being punished solely for going off track is hamilton. So no other drivers get punished for it either. Which makes the hamilton punishment so much more odd.

    2. Was it with all four wheels off the track though? I doubt it. Vettel is a driver who enjoys maximising the track, but not in an illegal sense, any more than the rest.

  8. Great drive by Hamilton. Agressive and consistent when needed.

  9. Have anyone read any reports about Hamilton’s overtake on Webber?
    Was it an okay overtake even if he didn’t leave room for Webber on the track?

  10. I also agree that vettel used more than the track on many occasions. Of particular note was lap 19 when he was defending against grosjean…

  11. Fair play to Lewis, that was an exceptional race by him. I really couldn’t see the Mercedes staying out front with the heat before the race, so this was really pleasing. The first win of many hopefully!

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