Sebastian Vettel led team mate Kimi
Raikkonen home for a Ferrari one-two in Formula 1 Pirelli Magyar Nagydij 2017.
With Mercedes Lewis Hamilton finishing fourth, it means Vettel extends his
championship lead to 14 points heading into the summer break.
On a day when the Silver Arrows had
no answer to the Scuderia, despite Vettel complaining of steering issues,
Valtteri Bottas took third ahead of Hamilton, just in front of a recovering Max
Verstappen, who had been penalized 10 seconds for taking his Red Bull team mate
Daniel Ricciardo out of the race on the opening lap. Fernando Alonso secured
his and McLaren’s best result of the year in sixth, winning a race-long battle
with fellow Spaniard Carlos Sainz in the Toro Rosso. Force India again got both
cars in the points, with Sergio Perez beating team mate Esteban Ocon to eighth
place, whilst Stoffel Vandoorne rounded out the top ten in the second McLaren.
Vettel and Raikkonen finished less
than a second apart after 70 laps of the Hungaroring, but the reds certainly
had to work much harder than they anticipated for their 43 points. In the
opening stages they were very much in command, as Vettel sprinted away and took
Raikkonen with him, and Hamilton dropped behind team mate Bottas and Verstappen
at the start. But gradually Raikkonen began to erode Vettel lead as the German
started complaining of a steering problem, and when Hamilton’s car came alive
on the soft Pirelli tyres in the second stint, Mercedes asked Bottas to let the
Briton by.
The result puts Vettel further
ahead again in the title chase with 202 points to Hamilton’s 188 and Bottas
169, while Raikkonen closes on Ricciardo 117 with 116. Daniil Kvyat was 11th in the other
Toro Rosso, four-tenths ahead of Jolyon Palmer who had run 10th early on before
being instructed to let faster Renault team mate Nico Hulkenberg by. The German
was fighting for points when he was eased off-track in Turn 2 by Kevin
Magnussen (who received a five second penalty as a result), but his R.S.17
malfunctioned right near the end and he was instructed to retire.
That
left Magnussen 13th from Lance Stroll who was Williams’ sole finisher after the
returning Paul di Resta drove a smooth and incident-free race battling with the
Saubers until he too was told to stop near the end due to an oil leak. Pascal
Wehrlein beat Sauber team mate Marcus Ericsson for 16th, as Romain Grosjean
joined Hulkenberg, di Resta and Ricciardo in retirement when an improperly
fastened wheel obliged Haas to tell him to stop.
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