Formula 1: Lewis Hamilton holds seals his second victory of the season

By PABLO GORONDI
Published on 30/07/2012 00:00

LEWIS Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix yesterday, prolonging McLaren’s dominance on the slow and winding Hungaroring circuit.

Hamilton completed the race in 1 hour, 41 minutes, 5.503 seconds – more than a second ahead of Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen. Romain Grosjean, also of Lotus, was third. It was McLaren’s sixth win here in eight years. “Really fantastic,” Hamilton said over the team radio after crossing the finish line. “Let’s try to keep this up.”

Rounding out the top ten were defending champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull, championship leader Fernando Alonso of Ferrari, McLaren’s Jenson Button, Bruno Senna of Williams, Mark Webber of Red Bull, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg of Mercedes.

Scot Paul Di Resta’s 12th-place finish wasn’t without incident as he was elbowed off the track by Williams driver Pastor Maldonado as they battled for the position. The Venezuelan picked up a penalty.

The victory was Hamilton’s third in Hungary and second of the season. He again demonstrated the advantage of starting from pole on a track that has few opportunities for passing.

“If we can continue with this kind of performance then we can slowly catch Alonso,” Hamilton said. “But we know we need consistency and we need to improve the car still in many areas.”

The British driver led for all but eight laps of the race – briefly falling back after two tyre changes – despite strong challenges from the Lotus pair.

Grosjean was often less than two seconds behind until he was passed by Raikkonen as the Finn came out of the pit lane after his final tyre change on lap 45.

Raikkonen kept the pressure on Hamilton until the end. “They are absolutely rapid, these guys,” Hamilton said about the two Lotus drivers. “If we were on another track where overtaking was much easier, I think perhaps the result would have been 
different.”

For Grosjean, it was the third podium finish of the year. “We were really close to fighting for the win,” the Swiss-born Frenchman said. “It’s a good result for the team, but, to be honest, I’m a bit disappointed.”

Grosjean was diplomatic about Raikkonen’s manoeuvre at Turn 1, when the 2007 world champion practically pushed him off the track to take over second place. “He did what he had to do to not let me pass,” said Grosjean, who sounded confident he would have caught Hamilton. “I went a little bit on the outside and got the marbles on the tyres, and then I struggled to recover. It is what it is.”

Alonso has 164 points, followed by Webber with 124 and Vettel with 122. Hamilton is fourth with 117, ahead of Raikkonen with 116.

Alonso was able to accomplish his main goal other than victory – to keep the Red Bulls firmly behind him. The Spaniard extended his lead over Webber by six points and lost only two points to Vettel.

“It’s a positive result, no doubt about it,” said Alonso, who. “We have a lead of 40 points courtesy of a car that has not been the best in this first half of the season. Now we must try to make a good leap forward to allow us to keep the lead. In the long term, what we have now will not be enough.”

The race was cut to 69 laps from 70, after an extra positioning lap was added when Michael Schumacher switched off the engine on the grid, worried about his Mercedes overheating. For the sixth time in 11 races, the seven-times world champion failed to finish the race.

The Hungaroring race marks the last event before a monthlong break, resuming with the Belgian GP on 2 September.