Lewis Hamilton Takes Championship Lead With Hungarian GP Win

Race victor Lewis Hamilton hit out at Mercedes tream-mate Nico Rosberg over the German’s slowing down under yellow flags on his qualifying pole lap on Saturday.

Hamilton’s victory was his fifth at Budapest, setting a new record as he overtook Michael Schumacher to become the most successful driver at the Hungaroring.

Rosberg adds that trailing Hamilton for the first time this year will not change his approach ahead of next weekend’s German Grand Prix. Max Verstappen had been running fourth behind Ricciardo before pitting, but lost a place to Vettel on the undercut. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 114 (-78) 5.

Not long into the second stint, Hamilton reported over the team radio that he was “struggling for pace” as Rosberg drew nearer at the front.

Hamilton controlled the race – even though at one stage he was told by his Mercedes team to pick up his pace – with Rosberg falling into Ricciardo’s clutches before the second and final round of pit stops.

The biggest threat to Mercedes’ control of a largely soporific race was at the start, when Ricciardo and Verstappen benefited from the slipstream of the silver cars and the two Red Bulls threatened the Mercedes into the first corner.

Hamilton registered his fifth win this season. He made the second on lap 50 and, with pleasing symmetry, closed behind Verstappen. Completing the podium was Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian made the switch to the soft tire, hoping to get the undercut on Rosberg. Mercedes did not respond as it looked to drop Rosberg into clean air, its cause being aided by Ricciardo hitting traffic while trying to go a lap up.

Satisfied that Hamilton had upped his pace, Mercedes brought the race leader in first at the end of lap 41. Rosberg may be suspicious that his team-mate was deliberately slowing the pace and Hamilton may have to explain himself as his speed, whether jollied on by the team or with fuel coming down, tyres coming in or simply his driving, was back up to par in no short order.

It was a pattern that repeated as they encountered traffic again, with Hamilton swiftly able to claw back six or seven-tenths extra when required.

The Race in Hungary will certainly not go down in the F1 history books as a classic but Hamilton won’t care too much about that as he now sits at the top of the championship standings, six points clear of his German teammate with ten races remaining in a record 21-race season.

“For me there was no question I had to lift because Fernando was on the track, but perhaps for Nico the track had cleared but there were still flags”.

It was perhaps a strategic error by Red Bull to leave Verstappen out so long, and the battle was rejoined late in the race as Raikkonen emerged after his second pit stop right behind the Dutchman. Hamilton has now triumphed more times in Hungary than any other driver in the sport’s history. He beat Rosberg by 1.977 seconds.

Ricciardo was a further 27 seconds behind, less than a second ahead of Vettel.

Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo was second, 0.595 seconds behind the championship leader, with Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, the 2015 Hungaroring victor, finishing third.