Lewis Hamilton was living a dream on Sunday after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix from pole position to take a 24-point lead into Formula One’s August break.
The four-times world champion’s fifth win of the season for Mercedes left him on 213 points to 189 for Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who finished second, and relishing the prospect of a stress-free family holiday, Reuters reported.
“I really could only have dreamed that we would be in the position that we are in right now,” he told reporters. “I’m really happy, going into the break, particularly with back-to-back wins.”
Vettel took the chequered flag 17.1 seconds behind, after surviving a late collision with Hamilton’s team mate Valtteri Bottas who also banged bodywork with Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo.
Ferrari had Kimi Raikkonen finish third to complete a podium of champions on a dry and sweltering afternoon at the Hungaroring outside Budapest.
The victory was Hamilton’s record sixth in Hungary and 67th of his career.
In a race effectively decided by Saturday’s wet qualifying, when Mercedes locked out the front row of the grid against expectation, Hamilton was never challenged.
Ricciardo, starting 12th, finished fourth but his Dutch team mate Max Verstappen retired early on with a Renault engine failure that infuriated both driver and team boss Christian Horner.
Bottas ended up fifth, and was handed a 10 second post-race penalty for the Ricciardo collision, with French driver Pierre Gasly sixth for Toro Rosso.
Kevin Magnussen was a lapped seventh for Haas, lifting the U.S.-owned team to fifth and ahead of Force India, with double world champion Fernando Alonso eighth for McLaren on his 37th birthday.
Add new comment
Read our comment policy before posting your viewpoints