Hungarian Grand Prix: Lewis Hamilton Has a Dirty Day, Jenson Button Cleans Up

Lewis Hamilton had a day he’d rather forget in Hungary.

On a day when the fickle weather played more of a role in deciding the race outcome than it should have, we saw two bad decisions take Lewis Hamilton from the lead.

On lap 47, the rain caught Hamilton out as he was one of the first drivers to arrive at a localised wet area, spinning the McLaren pilot and placing him in an awkward position.

As is the way with Formula 1 drivers, Hamilton planted the right foot and flicked his car around—right into the path of Force India’s Paul di Resta.

Fortunately, di Resta was awake and took to the bushes to avoid the collision.

The stewards took a dim view of Hamilton’s action and gave him a drive-through penalty. Either way, it was a bad decision—either by Hamilton for running di Resta off the road or by the stewards for penalising Hamilton for getting his car out of harm’s way.

I’m sure opinion will be divided.

To make matters worse, Hamilton had the misfortune to decide to come in for intermediate tyres on lap 52. After swapping places with teammate Jenson Button a couple of times, Hamilton regained the lead just in time to have first call on whether to change tyres.

He chose to go to intermediates, just in time to see the rain stop and the track dry out. A bad call that, coupled with the drive-through penalty, cost him the race.

Hamilton wasn’t alone in choosing to swap tyres, Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg did the same, but the leaders took the risk and stayed out hoping the rain would ease and it paid dividends.

Jenson Button reaffirmed his reputation as being the go-to guy in changeable weather conditions and took a well-earned victory in his 200th grand prix.

Sebastian Vettel, after initially slipping behind the two McLarens, stayed out of trouble to take second place and extend his lead in the championship.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso had a mercifully uneventful race, except for a quick spin, coming home third and ensuring that all of the leading marques secured a spot on the podium.

And so as we go in to the mid-year break with Sebastian Vettel still carrying a commanding 85-point lead over teammate Webber, but the Red Bull aura of invincibility is fading rapidly.

McLaren has won the last two races and now seem to have a small, but decisive edge on Vettel and Webber in race mode.

Ferrari, too, are now competitive, but still a small margin behind the first two, whereas Mercedes and Renault seem to be going backward.

Renault have decided on a new, but somewhat risky strategy to attract the cameras attention for their sponsors. They have developed an exploding car which Nick Heidfeld took for a practice run during the grand prix.

Unlike most things that they have tried this year, this development worked flawlessly. It did, however, cause some consternation for the poor driver and some minor injuries for an unsuspecting marshal who was trying to put out the fire and got in the way of exploding debris.

With nine races to go, it’s unlikely that Vettel will be beaten for this year’s championship, but at least now we might get to see some good racing.

We’ll find out in Spa in four weeks' time.