F1 2012 — A Retrospective Part 12: Hungary
It was the last race before the Summer break, who went into the holidays in good spirits and who left themselves with a lot of work to do?
Qualifying
For the first time since Valencia, there wasn’t a drop of rain in sight come Saturday’s Qualifying session. Lewis Hamilton returned to the front of the grid, he finished ahead of Romain Grosjean by four tenths of a second. This was McLaren’s first pole position since Malaysia.
Four tenths separated Grosjean from fifth place Kimi Raikkonen. Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button separated the two Lotus drivers in third and fourth in what was a close session.
Championship leader Fernando Alonso was in sixth. He earned pole in the wet, but in the dry the Ferrari lacked the pace to compete at the front. His teammate Felipe Massa qualified in seventh, this was the closest the Brazilian had been to Alonso all season, only .056s behind.
Pastor Maldonado and Bruno Senna qualified in eighth and ninth. This was Senna’s first appearance inside the top 10 on Saturday so far this season and meant it was the first time both Williams drivers made it into Q3 in 2012.
Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top 10. The German out-qualified some big names to get into Q3. Mark Webber only managed 11th, with both Mercedes also missing out on a top 10 berth.
Nico Rosberg finished 13th and Michael Schumacher was even further back in 17th. The seven time World Champion didn’t get a final run out of Q2 so it was a “false position” but it was not an ideal start to the race weekend.
Pre-Race
Following the German Grand Prix, Red Bull’s car design was protested by rival teams. The stewards were referred to an issue other constructors had with their car’s engine mapping.
They were accused of manipulating the relationship between the torque produced by the RB8 and the degree to which the throttle was open. This was particularly notable around medium-speed corners. The design allowed more air to pass through the exhaust and over the diffuser, generating more downforce.
Red Bull were cleared of any wrongdoing, but the FIA introduced a rewritten form of the regulations that governed against throttle mapping, deeming it illegal. This was brought forward in time for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The event at the Hungaroring was the final one before Formula One’s Summer break. This was the last race before the factories were shut down and development halted for a short period, so the result here was set to leave a lasting impression of where the teams all stood going into the final stages of the 2012 season.
Unfortunately, this was a circuit David Croft saw fit to describe as being “notoriously difficult to overtake,” so those who suffered poor results in qualifying were in for a long afternoon ahead of them.
This was good news for Hamilton, who hadn’t won a race from pole position since his victory in Canada in 2010. Grosjean alongside him was also yet to win his first F1 race, so everything was set up perfectly for the McLaren driver. However, only one driver had won from pole in the previous seven races at Hungary in the lead up to this Grand Prix.
This season had a 50% conversion rate from pole from the first 10 races, with Hamilton himself contributing to three of those misfires by failing to convert in Australia and Malaysia, and by taking victory from Vettel in Canada.
There was great hope from Sky Sports’ commentary team for Grosjean and Raikkonen, with Martin Brundle saying “much is expected from [Lotus] today,” with the team still pushing hard for their first win of the season.
“Well, they’ve threatened so many times through the year and they come on strong at the end of a Grand Prix. Often, it’s been said that because of their grid position not representing their race pace that’s cost them, well today they’re in great shape,” said Brundle.
The top 10 all qualified on Soft tyres, but the chasing pack all had a free choice of tyres to start the race on. However, it was only Webber who chose to start on the Medium compound.
False Start
The cars got away off the line for the formation lap, one by one, but by the time they all came around and were sat and ready to go for the race start, the lights flashed red and then yellow as race director Charlie Whiting waved Hamilton to go off again on another formation lap.
Schumacher was parked on the wrong spot, he sat in 19th place instead of 17th which caused Whiting to send them around one more time.
However, Schumacher reacted too quickly to the red lights and turned off his engine! He had to be wheeled away to the pit lane after the cars all wandered by him.
He misunderstood the signals and thought the race was being stopped. He now started the race from the pit lane, a bad Saturday was turning into an even worse Sunday.
Race
On the second attempt, the cars finally took off to start the race. Hamilton got off the line well and held off Grosjean into Turn One, but he locked up his front right in the process, which bunched up the front four.
Vettel went alongside Grosjean, but was forced wide out of Turn One, which allowed Button to get on the outside of the Red Bull at Turn Two. This gave Button the inside of Turn Three, which he used to get ahead and into third.
Alonso got ahead of Raikkonen in much the same way and he was now into fifth. Massa dropped down to ninth, but Webber had a great first few corners and was now in seventh.
Hamilton led by 1.4s at the start of the second lap. Schumacher came in for a fresh set of Medium tyres, but was under investigation for speeding in the pit lane before the race started. Once he fired up the engine, he flew down to his starting position, which he apparently did at far too high a speed. Whoops.
Schumacher was given a drive-through penalty for his pit lane infraction. His race was a disaster before it could even begin, this was surely the final nail in the coffin.
He ultimately retired the car near the end of the race. The German never made it anywhere close to within a points scoring position, there was simply too much lost time to catch up.
Raikkonen was instructed to “press ok twice, [because] the battery is a bit empty,” after a KERS failure caused during the second formation lap. A lack of KERS likely cost him time at the race start, which might have been what allowed Alonso to get ahead.
By lap seven, Alonso was falling away from the front runners. He was holding up everyone as far back as Massa behind him, who were all within DRS range of the car in front of them. Webber’s race engineer reckoned the Spaniard was preserving his tyres.
On lap nine, Button was asking for constant updates on Vettel’s position. It was interesting that Button was primarily asking about the car behind and not the car in front, but Grosjean and Hamilton were simply much quicker ahead.
By lap 14, there was a 6s gap between second and third. Grosjean was matching Hamilton’s pace in front, this wasn’t going to be easy for McLaren.
On lap 15, Ted Kravtiz was reporting that Button was told they wanted to switch him to “Plan B,” but his response “are you sure?” prompted the team to switch back to the original strategy. Kravtiz believed that meant they were sticking to a two-stop, instead of changing to a three-stop.
Button was struggling with his tyres, which allowed Vettel to close up the gap to within DRS range, but the McLaren driver came in at the end of that lap. Hulkenberg and Maldonado also came in.
Button came out only just about ahead of Sergio Perez. It was crucial he came out in the clear air, otherwise the time lost behind the Sauber could have gifted Vettel a great opportunity at an overcut by staying out longer.
Vettel and Alonso came in on lap 17, Vettel came in for another set of Soft tyres, but Alonso opted for a new set of Medium tyres. Vettel came out behind Button, but Alonso came out behind Perez, which was bad news for Ferrari.
There were a lot of rumours about whether Perez might be the man to replace Massa for the 2013 season, Button’s name was also thrown around as a possibility, so this was like a mini-audition for Perez as he was now forced to defend his position against a much quicker Alonso.
Hamilton came in from the lead on lap 18, he dropped down to fourth. He also changed to the Medium compound. Grosjean came in on lap 19, but he chose to stay on the Soft tyres, switching to a used set from Saturday. This was a gamble from Lotus for short-term gain but possibly in exchange for long-term pain.
Hamilton comfortably retained the lead despite an imperfect stop. The Lotus mechanics had a chance to help Grosjean with a superb stop of their own, but it was even slower than Hamilton’s which destroyed any chance the Frenchman had of gaining the de-facto lead. He was now sixth.
Alonso passed Perez at Turn Four. He had better traction out of Turn Three, which gave him better speed going up the hill, which he used to get ahead of the Sauber.
Raikkonen and Webber both pitted that lap, now that Alonso was in free air it was the opportune time to come in if the overcut was going to work.
And, for Raikkonen, the overcut did work! He was ahead of the Championship leader and was now in free air to catch up to Vettel and Button ahead. The Lotus was meant to be quick, this was his chance to prove it. Webber stayed behind Alonso.
In the other Lotus, Grosjean went fastest. The Soft tyres were giving him the edge over Hamilton, and was gaining on him by .6s a lap now.
Hamilton was warned of the threat behind, but was also informed Grosjean’s tyres won’t last as long due to him being on worn Soft tyres. The gap was eaten away at by .7s that previous lap, the Lotus was closing in fast.
By lap 25, Grosjean was within the DRS range of Hamilton. But, as was being shown by both Red Bulls, the DRS zone at the start/finish straight was proving incredibly ineffective, with barely anyone making a successful overtaking move at Turn One so far.
Webber was stuck right behind Alonso at this point, and Vettel was similarly struggling behind Button. In particular, Vettel was right behind Button at every corner, but never anywhere near close enough to actually make an overtake attempt.
The gap out front was suddenly widening. On lap 26, it was back up to 1.7s and by lap 27 it was as far as 2.4s. Brundle said that Grosjean must have made a mistake somewhere on both laps, but the action was showing Vettel’s pursuit of Button so it was unclear specifically what caused it.
It definitely wasn’t a sudden drop-off in performance from the Lotus or its tyres because Grosjean quickly got back to work on closing down the gap back to within DRS range. By lap 30, only 1.2s separated the pair.
On lap 31, Vettel had a curt exchange with his race engineer Guillaume “Rocky” Rocquelin, the frustration of being unable to overtake Button was clear in the German’s voice.
“I can go much faster than him, do something,” urged Vettel.
“We know what you mean, Sebastian, we’re working on it,” replied Rocky.
“Try something then, try something,”
“There are cars behind, Sebastian, we can’t just try anything, we’re looking at it.”
While Red Bull were looking at changing strategy, McLaren did their work for them and finally committed to switching Button to Plan B. He arrived in the pit lane for his second stop on lap 34 and he moved onto a set of Soft tyres, which surely indicated he was now driving a three-stop race.
Now that Vettel was in the free air, he was happy to push and try to overcut Button. Vettel immediately responded by setting the fastest lap of the race. Raikkonen followed suit by going even quicker, it was possible that the Finn could also get ahead if he could prolong his stint while keeping up this pace.
Button came out behind Senna and was unable to get ahead of the Williams. He tried to overtake at Turn Four, but couldn’t do what Alonso did earlier and so was stuck with the same problem he had given to Vettel before the pit stop. This was a taste of his own DRS medicine and it had the potential to ruin his race.
Raikkonen and Vettel were going .8 and .7s quicker per lap than Button despite being on much older tyres. This showed how important being in clean air was, and how ineffective DRS was.
Button’s pace was only good enough to match the marker of Senna, which was a 1.27.4 lap time. Raikkonen was consistently going quicker, setting a fastest lap of 1.26.1.
On lap 38, Vettel came in for his second stop and he re-joined the track ahead of Senna and Button. The overcut worked superbly.
Button’s struggles caused McLaren to switch Hamilton back to Plan A. Grosjean came in for his second stop on lap 39. Despite being so close to the McLaren, he too was unable to make an overtake attempt. Webber also came in for his second stop, he came back out in 10th place.
Hamilton came in a lap later and came back out still ahead of Grosjean. Alonso was also in the mix, but was yet to stop a second time. Raikkonen now led and was continuing to set fastest laps.
Webber went quickest with a 1.25.4, but Raikkonen was only three tenths slower on much older tyres. This pace was looking like it might now threaten Hamilton.
On lap 42, Senna pitted, but the damage was done to Button. Alonso and Massa both came in on lap 43 for a Ferrari double stack. Alonso came out in seventh place behind Button and Webber.
The gap was 8s either side of Webber, who managed to comfortably undercut Alonso.
However, Webber was on a three-stop strategy, whereas Alonso had just completed the second of his two stops. Button came in for a third time on lap 45, which moved Alonso ahead into sixth place.
Raikkonen’s pace was steadying out to match with his rivals which meant it was time to come in, but the gap he had opened up meant it was going to be close between him and his teammate.
The Finn arrived out of the pit lane and he was side by side with Grosjean!
They somehow just about didn’t touch and Raikkonen used the inside line to his advantage by gently nudging Grosjean off the track and the 2007 World Champion was now up to second place!
He was comfortably far back in fifth before this phase of pit stops, that was some effort to overcut Vettel, Button and Grosjean.
Button was within DRS range of Alonso but was still unable to make use of the system. Not a single overtake inside the top 10 occurred with the use of the rear wing flap.
The gap between Raikkonen and Hamilton was roughly 4s out of the pit lane, but Raikkonen quickly got to work in cutting that down by 1.5s over the next few laps. By lap 53, the Lotus driver caught up to within 1s of the Briton.
Further back, Vettel was struggling on his tyres. He cut the chicane at Turn Six and Seven. Webber’s tyres were in a similar condition. However, he was put out of his misery by coming in for his third and final stop on lap 55. He was now in eighth.
Vettel did eventually pit on lap 58, he covered a gap that meant he stayed ahead of Alonso and retained his fourth place.
Raikkonen was getting frustrated being stuck behind Hamilton. The pace of the Lotus indicated it could have won this race, but there was simply no opportune chance to overtake the race leader.
“My only hope of getting passed is if Hamilton starts to lose his rear tyres,” said a dejected Raikkonen over the radio. The chance for a race victory was slipping through his fingers yet again.
Raikkonen was pushing as hard as he could in the final few laps. He locked up his front left trying to close the gap at Turn Two, but it was all to no avail. He dropped off in the final couple laps, the gap ended up around 1.2s as Hamilton took the chequered flag for his second race victory of the 2012 season!
Raikkonen and Grosjean completed the podium, this was the second time this season Lotus got both drivers inside the top three. Vettel marginally closed the gap to Alonso in the championship, but Alonso minimised the damage with a controlled fifth place finish.
The final standings were as follows
Championship Standings Top Five (Round 11)
Reports came out from Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemelo that he was “concerned” about Ferrari’s progress relative to their rivals. He acknowledged his own team’s improvement from pre-season but was wary of getting ahead of themselves.
“I see very strong opponents: McLaren has made great progress, Red Bull is very strong, Sauber had a race pace that was a match for ours and Lotus is very strong at times,” said di Montezemelo.
“Therefore, we have to be very careful. After we had a difficult start to the season, maybe our rivals did not expect to see Ferrari capable of fighting back this strongly, but now they will redouble their efforts to beat us.
“Therefore, we must stay very focused and continue our efforts to improve continuously.”
Alonso’s fifth place in Hungary extended his lead over Webber to 40 points, but the McLaren and Lotus were much quicker over the entire weekend. There was still a long way to go in the championship and still a lot of work to be done once the teams re-convened from their Summer break.
Hamilton moved back ahead of Raikkonen in the standings, but both were still well within touching distance of the Red Bulls and the Championship leader. There were still a lot of points available in the final nine races and both of them deserved to be in the conversation.
Rosberg was much further back in sixth, he had only 77 points, which meant this was down to a five-way battle for the World Championship.
Post-Race
“Amazing job, guys, really fantastic. Those guys [Lotus] are so quick. But, we managed to do it! I’m so grateful for all the efforts you put in, and let’s try to keep this up, alright? Thanks!” said a jubilant Hamilton over the radio during the in-lap.
Hamilton was very complimentary to the two Lotus drivers in the cooldown room. A lot was expected from them pre-race, but Hamilton held them off from what could have been a comfortable one-two result.
Raikkonen was unhappy after the race, he was not satisfied with another second place. Lotus had promised the potential for victories, but were yet to deliver.
Raikkonen came second in Bahrain and Valencia, as well as third in Spain and Germany so the car was clearly quick, and the feeling was that surely it was just a matter of time before the pieces all fell into place.
“We came second, it’s not enough. We had some problems with the KERS in the first lap which didn’t help us, but we had good speed,” said Raikkonen.
“We keep trying the next race to win, we keep saying that but at least we are up there all the time. I [will] take the second place, but for sure we are not happy until we win.”
Brundle observed that Hamilton was very happy all weekend, “so eager, so positive,” was how the commentator described him.
There was a dark cloud hanging over the backwards momentum of the McLaren team following a disappointing weekend at Silverstone, but their pace looked to be back following good results in Germany and Hungary.
Hamilton was still within touching distance of Alonso, but he was being realistic about his championship chances.
“We were quick this weekend. You always want to win every race but to claw that gap back from Fernando [Alonso] we will need to finish ahead of him pretty much everywhere, which is going to be insanely difficult,” he said.
Team in Focus
McLaren were under intense pressure from the British press following their decline that led to a poor showing at Silverstone, but since then the results have picked up tremendously.
There was little the team could do about Hamilton’s puncture in Germany that ruined his race, but Button had the pace to compete for the race victory at Hockenheim.
Button could only earn second, a stubborn Alonso proved too difficult to get ahead of, but Hamilton drove a fantastic race in Hungary to secure the team’s third win of the season.
The team brought upgrades to the car that improved its performance, and the drivers were now comfortable extracting that pace from the car. Button was vocal about his problems in Canada, but those now looked to be resolved.
Hamilton knew there was a long road ahead and that they were running out of time to catch Alonso. But he showed great leadership by pushing the team to improve. He wasn’t happy to rest easy following victory in Hungary, saying the team had to keep getting better.
“Today was on a knife-edge to stay ahead. It would be nice to have a comfortable race where we stay ahead where me and Jenson [Button] get a one-two,” he said.
“But that’s going to come from more performance in the car and that’s what we’ve got to work towards. I really hope we have another upgrade [at the next race] in Spa and I’m going to be pushing for that upgrade.”
Race Verdict
This was the first truly dreadful race of the season. There was a total dearth of on-track action which led to many anticlimactic moments. The most dramatic incidents happened in the pit lane, which just isn’t as satisfying as seeing top class drivers duke it out over several corners or even several laps.
Hamilton drove a superb race, but it was a shame that Raikkonen and Grosjean were both completely unable to close the gap. Not even DRS could save this race as not a single overtake inside the top 10 was completed using the system, it could hardly have been more ineffective.
One of my own strongest opinions on the F1 calendar is that Hungary currently serves no purpose retaining its slot every year. The 2020 season showcased much better quality tracks around Europe that would all be far better suited to the sport. Let’s all just forget about any of this and move on to the next one.
Result: 1/5
Next up: BELGIUM
Previous entries in the series can be found here
