2014 Hungarian Grand Prix - Hungaroring

[basti313]

That and the rain, the accidents and the safety car.

Did the rain change anything? I think rain during the race (except last round) did never change the race so little. 8 laps on inters, then change to softs for everyone...
Most change was due to the safety car. This may have ruined even more action...without it we would have seen people struggling on Softs on one part and being much faster on the other part...

If Mercedes thought ROS would win by pitting at the end, why they didn't pit Lewis too who was in front of him?

Rosberg did not win due to traffic. It had nothing to do with strategy. He would not have one with Ham's strategy and Ham would not have one with Rosberg's strategy. To only thing one can discuss is what would have happend if both would have been on Rosberg's strategy...this is difficult: No spin for Vettel, Ham behind Ros, Alo pitting later...

I think at the time when Rosberg was closing the gap to Hamilton, there was even a small chance for a Mercedes 1-2. But the MGP-Strategy didn't consider Hamiltons slowing down after the DRS zone and in the infield while Rosberg was behind.
I think his laptimes improved again after Rosbergs pit stop (does anybody have the actual laptimes?). So Hamiton's gap to Ricciardo would have been bigger, and he would have closed the gap to Alonso earlier. We will never know if Rosberg could catch Hamilton at the end in this scenario (his tyre-advantage being smaller, and maybe Alonso out of the way).

After a few "dirty moves" we have seen by both drivers, this is the first one to cost the team points.

You opened it, now you have to life with it

[turbof1]

Think it was Brundle in the commentary, called Riccardo a star of the future? He's a star right now and you'd have to be blind not to see it.

Re the pitstops, fully agree with turbo. Team's job is to get both the cars as far up the road as possible. You give each driver every advantage possible short of deliberately compromising the other.

And iotar, I'm not sure exactly how Hamilton's engine catching fire translates into "Rosberg earned a points advantage and Hamilton must be kept behind when Rosberg is compromised by safety car timing"?

1.Just winning 2 races doesn't make you a star. He had again bad start (mostly bad starts this season), this time couple of positions lost, benefited from safety car and his main opposition was Alonso in a slower car and without benefits of SC timing, on a different strategy and very old tyres, overtaking him was formality. Mercedes' strategy according to Wolff helped him in a major way as was Hamilton's behaviour. Overtake on Hamilton after his mistake was good.
2. I think I put it as clearly as possible comparing losing advantage of one place thanks to sub-optimal strategy in Austria and Hungary situation, separating pitstops from overall strategy doesn't make sense here. So again: if it's up to Hamilton to decide strategy for Rosberg it should have been up to Rosberg to choose if he wants to pit first (his right) and thus deny his opposition to jump one place over Bottas and gain WDC points, since according to Toto Wolff that is driver's right when Hamilton was preventing team's strategy and Rosberg jumping Alonso. Simple rule: who decides strategy and based on what criteria: team's or his own benefit. Rosberg finishing in front of Alonso would benefit the team as was Hamilton's in front of Bottas. No point repeating in fourth time.
3. I don't know where you got that quote from and what situation and whose opinion it's describing.

iotar, let's not discuss what's the correct superlative. Point was Ricciardo is on the rise. Ricciardo did have the luck of the safety car, but he also did the correct strategy and the bold moves in the end. Point is: he's given an oppertunity, and he very much grabs it with hands and feet.

[MercedesAMGSpy]

In my opinion Rosberg's strategy was very bad. 13 quali laps with Kimi and Massa in front of him. Yeah 13 quali laps with an airplane he would maybe have won, but I didn't get why Brundle was so excited. Hamilton had to defend one time and the podium was in the bag.

[simieski]

Did the rain change anything? I think rain during the race (except last round) did never change the race so little. 8 laps on inters, then change to softs for everyone...

Well the rain was pretty significant, wasn't it the reason people had incidents that led to the sc? It certainly caused Vettel's spin being greedy as ever on corner exits!

[Pierce89]

And just_a_fan is right: there's too much talk about Hamilton; I barely see any credit to Alonso or Ricciardo. Since when is the race winner put on the background, just because of an other driver having a bit of controversy? It's getting insane, and if this continues I'll simply lock the topic. Too much blabla Hamilton blabla.

perhaps Hamilton just has more fans, and that's why he is talked about more.

IMHO Hamilton has (by far) the most vocal fans. This, in turn, creates people who dislike Hamilton through no fault of his own. Hamilton also did himself no favors with the Spa race incident. If anyone watches that video, Lewis doesn't say "its cos I is black" he clearly says "maybe its because I'm black" and as an afterthought added the Ali G reference. Hamilton has also came off bad this year with claiming Nico isn't really German or that Nico has less desire than lewis . I'm sure I'll get responses saying he just answered the question he was asked, but there were much more intelligent ways to answere those questions.

I'm not pro or anti Hamilton just opining on his situation. I consider Hamilton the second best driver behind Alonso.

[gray41]

Amazing overtake.

[Shrieker]

Watch the dirt being kicked up from the side of the track on JEV's rear shot Very ballsy move !

It is also worth noting Hamilton had been trying for 2 corners and that was a well spent effort trying to put JEV where he wanted and then pounce.

On a side note... "GrotesqueSneakyFinwhale" ? Really ?!?

[dans79]

That and the rain, the accidents and the safety car.

Did the rain change anything?

I think Rosberg, Bottas, Vettel, and to a lesser extent Alonso would disagree with you, as they all got screwed by the first safety car, and that was directly related to the rain.

[SectorOne]

Did the rain change anything?

It literally changed everything.

[astracrazy]

Hamilton has also came off bad this year with claiming Nico isn't really German or that Nico has less desire than lewis . .

I don't think he come off bad about that at all. Nico has said himself, because he was there, that actually it was the interviewer implying that not lewis

We also had it at Monaco where the press tried to stir up a storm and Lewis was happy to explain what he actually said in front of the press with Nico present.

If anything, i think Lewis' image has improved since he left Mclaren

(sorry off topic, back to the race)

[Shrieker]

Could Hamilton have come out ahead of Vettel and Alonso in the first sc period if he hadn't spun on the first lap ?

Analysis:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2014/07/27/2 ... -charts-2/

On the race chart check for only HAM, ROS, VET, ALO and JEV. On lap 7 (when the sc comes out) ALO, VET and ROS can't pit initially, HAM and JEV can. JEV, who is 25.3 seconds behind the leader on lap 7 comes out ahead of both ALO and VET. HAM was only 8 seconds behind JEV on lap 7 when the SC had come out. His first lap spin was most definitely worth more than 8 seconds. He would've come out ahead of ALO and VET like JEV did, and probably ahead of ROS as well. It's also worth noting he was 21 seconds behind the leading car at the end of the first lap alone.

It's a crying shame he threw a historic chance with a rookie mistake... Of course there were no guarantees he'd have won then, but he'd have had a much, much better shot than what he had.

[oT v1]

[url]http://giant.gfycat.com/GrotesqueSneakyFinwhale.gif[url]

Amazing overtake.

Had thoughts of Grosjean in the back of my mind as Hamilton was mid-pass, carried it off perfectly though! There was some great overtakes by the top three, Nico was a bully though haha! RAI needs to stop being so easy to pass (not 'easy', but 'mature', he got abused in Germany in well by being too nice.

[dans79]

JEV, who is 25.3 seconds behind the leader on lap 7 comes out ahead of both ALO and VET. HAM was only 8 seconds behind JEV on lap 7 when the SC had come out. His first lap spin was most definitely worth more than 8 seconds. He would've come out ahead of ALO and VET like JEV did, and probably ahead of ROS as well.

Even as a Hamilton fan I think this is a stretch, he might have only been 8 seconds behind, but he had 4 cars between himself and Jev. He probably could have taken Kimi, sutil, & Gutierrez over 3 laps, but Perez might have taken a few as it would have needed to be timed perfectly because of the common engine.

[markn93]

Has a driver starting from the pitlane ever beaten a team-mate starting on pole, without a dnf/on merit before?

Apologies if answered already.

[ab_f1]

To me Nico lost the race by driving too conservatively. With championship in mind, he was comfortable with his position as long as he was ahead of Hamilton. Wuth little more urgency behind JEV results would have been different.