Track Torque: Vettel best of rest in Budapest
Sebastian Vettel is quietly creeping into contention.
FOUR-TIME world champion Sebastian Vettel drove a fantastic race to confirm his hunger for wins in Hungary, and take his tally to 41 GPs.
He is now third in the championship, just 42 points behind Lewis Hamilton.
With 25 points for a win, positions could quickly change.
It is worth remembering that only Michael Schumacher, with seven world championships under his belt, and Juan Manuel Fangio with five, are ahead of Vettel, while Alain Prost equals him with four championships.
Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna each have three world titles to their credit.
It was a frenetic, exciting, action-packed race with many mixed fortunes.
Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen took the first two spots away from Hamilton and Nico Rosberg on the first lap.
Hamilton, from pole position, went off the track and back on again, slipping down to tenth place.
It really was a race of champions and records broken, with half of the top 10 drivers being world champions, challenging for positions.
Let us remind ourselves where this 41st win by Vettel puts him relative to the other greats.
Schumacher has won 91 races, Prost 51, Senna 41, Hamilton 38 and Fernando Alonso 32.
Vettel went on to win during a ‘no let up’ race but poor Raikkonen eventually succumbed to a KERS problem and had to retire.
The most spectacular accident of the incident-full race was that involving Nico Hulkenberg – when his front wing, following some earlier damage, detached itself and went under the car, raising the front wheels in the air.
The lack of steering and front brakes caused him a harsh entry into the tyre barrier, retiring him out of seventh place on the spot.
This brought the safety car out for the only occasion during the race.
McLaren came back with a bang and surprised the critics with a great performance from their Honda engine cars into fifth and ninth places at the finish after showing some form in practice and qualifying.
For Williams it was a disastrous weekend with both cars out of the top 10 due to various problems, not all their own.
The three Renault cars of Daniil Kvyat, Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen did a great job to come home second, third and fourth respectively behind Vettel.
Hamilton and Rosberg ended up sixth and eighth with Romain Grosjean seventh in the sandwich.
Marcus Ericsson did well to get his Sauber into the points in tenth spot.
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