Formula 1: Lewis Hamilton Wins the Hungarian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton made the most of the Hungaroring's narrow, twisty layout to hold off a late challenge from Kimi Raikkonen and win the Hungarian Grand Prix for the third time.

Romain Grosjean followed the Finn home to give Lotus a double podium, ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

While his McLaren teammate claimed victory, Jenson Button will not be happy with sixth. Projected heavy tyre wear forced him onto a three-stop strategy, and traffic ended his hopes of a better finish.

The race was slightly delayed by what appeared to be a problem with the start sequence. At the first attempt the lights did not come on as expected.

Believing the start had been aborted and there would be a delay, Michael Schumacher—starting 17th after a poor qualifying—switched off his engine. But the cars were sent straight back round, and the German was forced to start from the pit lane.

After this second formation lap, the lights worked correctly and the race got underway, Hamilton holding the lead ahead of Grosjean as Button passed Vettel for third. It was an eventful first lap, but the excitement ended there.

The threatened thunderstorms never arrived, leaving us with a processional, largely dull affair. Despite the presence of the DRS overtaking aid, all the major position changes occurred during pit stops.

Real overtaking proved almost impossible, and even attempts were few and far between. The Lotuses of Raikkonen and Grosjean appeared faster than Hamilton's McLaren, but could not get close enough to challenge the Brit's lead.

One of the few incidents of note was Pastor Maldonado forcing Paul di Resta off the track at Turn 1 on Lap 49.

Though not intentional—he lost the back end while attempting to pass, and recovering the slide sent him wide towards di Resta—it brought yet another penalty for the Venezuelan and ensured questions over his on-track behaviour will continue to be raised.

Bruno Senna came home in seventh ahead of championship contender Mark Webber, who retained second place in the standings despite a disappointing eighth. Felipe Massa and Nico Rosberg rounded out the Top 10.

F1 heads into the summer break on the back of what was probably the worst race of the season so far. All the teams will now close down their operations for two weeks, giving the engineers, mechanics and tea ladies a well-earned rest.

The Hungaroring is not suited to the needs of modern Formula 1, and without a major redesign of the pit straight area it will surely be dropped from the calendar when its contract expires in 2016.

But let's not be disheartened. The action returns on September 2 at the beautiful Spa-Francorchamps Circuit in Belgium. If anywhere can produce a great race to wipe away the memories of Hungarian boredom, it's Spa.

The full official result is below.

Hungarian Grand Prix

Pos	Driver	Team	Time / +
01	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1:41:05:503
02	Kimi Raikkonen	Lotus	+1.0secs
03	Romain Grosjean	Lotus	+10.5s
04	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	+11.6s
05	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	+26.6s
06	Jenson Button	McLaren	+30.2
07	Bruno Senna	Williams	+33.8
08	Mark Webber	Red Bull	+34.4
09	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	+38.3s
10	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	+51.2s
11	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India	+57.2s
12	Paul di Resta	Force India	+62.8s
13	Pastor Maldonado	Williams	+63.3s
14	Sergio Perez	Sauber	+64.4s
15	Daniel Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	+1 Lap
16	Jean-Eric Vergne	Toro Rosso	+1 Lap
17	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	+1 Lap
18	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber	+2 Laps
19	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham	+2 Laps
20	Charles Pic	Marussia	+2 Laps
21	Timo Glock	Marussia	+3 Laps
22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT	+3 Laps
23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT	+9 Laps / Retired
24	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	+11 Laps / Retired