Britain\u2019s Lewis Hamilton seized his first win for Mercedes in the Hungarian heat yesterday while Red Bull\u2019s Sebastian Vettel forged 38 points clear in the Formula One championship after finishing third.
\n\u201cThis is probably one of the most important Grand Prix wins of my career,\u201d Hamilton told the crowd after his fourth win at the Hungaroring circuit in seven years but his first with a team other than McLaren.
\n\u201cI could not be happier. I hope there is plenty more to come. We have to work hard but if we can make the tyres last here we can do it anywhere.\u201d
\nKimi Raikkonen, who could be Vettel\u2019s team-mate next season, took second place for Lotus – 10.9 seconds behind Hamilton – after doing one stop fewer and holding off the German in the tense closing laps to the delight of thousands of Finns in the crowd.
\n\u201cI told Kimi I was not happy but he was laughing. That\u2019s racing,\u201d Vettel, who had complained over the radio after one failed attempt to pass that Raikkonen had not given him enough room, said with a smile.
\nHungary marked the midpoint in the season and after 10 of the 19 races Vettel goes into the August break with 172 points to Raikkonen\u2019s 134.
\nFerrari\u2019s Fernando Alonso lost ground and now has 133 after finishing fifth. Hamilton is on 124.
\nHamilton, the 2008 world champion who won in Hungary for McLaren last season, led from pole position on a day when track temperatures reached 50 degrees Celsius to secure the 22nd win of his career.
\n\u201cI was hungry for it today, I was going all out,\u201d said the Briton, who joins now-retired predecessor Michael Schumacher as the only drivers to have won four times in Hungary.
\nThe Briton had started on pole for the third race in a row and made a good start while team mate Nico Rosberg, who retired with flames shooting out of the rear of his car four laps from the end, plunged from fourth to 12th after one lap.
\nThere were two occasions when Hamilton could have become stuck behind Vetttel\u2019s team mate Mark Webber after pitstops but he dealt with the situation aggressively to make sure of Mercedes\u2019s third win of the season.
\nVettel had slotted in behind Hamilton in second place at the start with Raikkonen\u2019s team mate Romain Grosjean third and Alonso muscling up to fourth.
\nGrosjean\u2019s forceful treatment of Ferrari\u2019s Felipe Massa, running off track to keep position, left him with a drive-through penalty and the Frenchman ended the race under investigation after another incident with McLaren\u2019s Jenson Button.
\nVettel then lost time behind Button after a pitstop while Hamilton pulled away at the front and was able to control the race and manage the new Pirelli tyres that had been his biggest concern before the start.
\nAustralian Webber finished fourth for Red Bull, after starting 10th.\b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain\u2019s Lewis Hamilton seized his first win for Mercedes in the Hungarian heat yesterday while Red Bull\u2019s Sebastian Vettel forged 38 points clear in the Formula One championship after finishing third.
\n\u201cThis is probably one of the most important Grand Prix wins of my career,\u201d Hamilton told the crowd after his fourth win at the Hungaroring circuit in seven years but his first with a team other than McLaren.
\n\u201cI could not be happier. I hope there is plenty more to come. We have to work hard but if we can make the tyres last here we can do it anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":9864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}