2008 Hungarian Grand Prix Race Report

by Effwun - FOAS #65

The Hungarian Grand Prix has a history of surprising results, and this year's event was no different. Heikki Kovalainen took his maiden victory in Hungary, ahead of Timo Glock and Kimi Raikkonen. Meanwhile, title leader Lewis Hamilton came home in fifth place after losing time due to a puncture and Felipe Massa retired with engine problems just three laps from home, having led from the start.

It looked like it was going to be a close race from the start of the weekend. In Friday Practice 1, the Ferraris were fastest, with Felipe Massa 3 tenths faster than his team mate. The McLarens were third and fourth fastest, with Kovalainen the faster of the two. Fernando Alonso was 5th fastest, around 8 tenths slower than Felipe, and Timo Glock was 6th fastest, just shy of a second slower than Massa.

McLaren turned the tables on Ferrari in P2 - Lewis Hamilton was the fastest man, but only 2 tenths faster than Nelsinho Piquet - who set his fastest time then immediately spun at the first corner. Kovalainen was third fastest, ahead of Alonso, Raikkonen, and Massa. Less than half a second covered the top 6.

So, it appeared as though the performance of the front runners was quite close, and that Ferrari had managed to claw back some of the gap to McLaren. However, it seemed that McLaren may have still had some of the advantage. In P3, Lewis was again top of the time sheet, 3 tenths faster than Massa, with Timo Glock the third fastest man, just 6 hundredths slower than Massa. Indeed, Glock was there or thereabouts in all of the practice sessions, and clearly was not suffering any ill effects from his hard crash at Hockenheim.

Qualifying was a typical affair - a case of the usual suspects mixed in with a few surprises. The two Force Indias of Sutil and Fisichella were eliminated in Q1, as were Heidfeld, Nakajima and Barrichello. Nick Heidfeld's performance was woeful, but he would claim that he was held up by Sebastien Bourdais at the end of his hot lap. It was a judgement call - Bourdais was trying to get out of everybody else's way, and it was a case of the wrong place at the wrong time. Nevertheless, the stewards agreed with Heidfeld and Bourdais would receive a 5 grid spot penalty.

Q2 saw the elimination of Sebastian Vettel - who continues to outshine his illustrious team mate - Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Sebastien Bourdais (who would drop to 19th on the grid) and Nico Rosberg who, after squeezing through into Q2, suffered a hydraulic problem and would not set a time. There were interesting times from the front-runners though. Lewis Hamilton had set the fastest time in Q1 by two tenths from Massa, but Felipe Massa set the fastest time in Q2 by two tenths from Timo Glock. It was shaping up to be an exciting Q3.

When it came down to it, the McLarens were the faster cars - Lewis Hamilton took pole position, two tenths ahead of team mate Kovalainen who was 5 hundredths ahead of Felipe Massa. Robert Kubica was an excellent fourth on the grid, ahead of Timo Glock and Kimi Raikkonen, who continued to struggle in qualifying. The rest of the top ten was rounded out by Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Jarno Trulli, and Nelsinho Piquet.

As the cars formed up on the grid for the start, most of the front runners had elected to start on the harder of the two Bridgestone tyre compounds - the Option (super soft) tyres were unfavoured and teams would probably try to minimise the amount of running they had to do on them.

With the pace that the McLarens had shown, it was suspected that they were on heavier fuel than their rivals given how close the qualifying times were. These suspicions seemed confirmed at the start. As the lights went out and the cars roared away, the McLarens made a good start. However, Felipe Massa made a fantastic start. He got better traction from 3rd on the grid, and ran down Lewis Hamilton into the first corner. Hamilton defended the inside line, but Felipe had better momentum on the outside of the corner. Massa locked his tyres as he dived around Hamilton, and the two came very close through the corner. It looked as though Hamilton still had the advantage on the inside, but he got a lot of wheelspin out of the corner, and Felipe Massa surged ahead into the lead. It was a superb move, and Massa had, in one corner, turned the tables on the McLarens.

Elsewhere, Robert Kubica dropped a place to Timo Glock, Kimi Raikkonen dropped a place to Fernando Alonso, Barrichello and Bourdais each gained three places whilst the Williams cars got poor starts and Sebastian Vettel dropped 4 places after getting bumped wide at the final corner.

In the opening laps, Felipe Massa set the pace - he was marginally quicker than Hamilton and was able to pull away at a rate of a couple of tenths per lap. The times waxed and waned a little bit though, as Hamilton and Massa traded fastest laps, but Massa had enough pace to start to creep away from Hamilton. By lap 15, Massa had managed to pull out a lead of 3 seconds. Meanwhile his team mate Kimi Raikkonen was stuck behind Fernando Alonso in 7th place. It appeared as though Raikkonen was substantially quicker than Alonso, but he just couldn't find a way past the Spaniard.

On lap 18 the Ferrari pits got ready for a stop, and at the end of the lap Felipe Massa pitted from the lead. He took on fresh Prime tyres and rejoined the race in 4th place, just ahead of of Fernando Alonso. It looked as though it was a great tactical choice by Ferrari - the leaders had fast been approaching backmarkers, and if Lewis Hamilton were to stay out longer with his assumed greater fuel load then he would have to contend with the backmarkers and wouldn't be able to capitalise on his low-fuel pace. It turned out to be a moot point - just one lap later, Hamilton pitted.

It turned out that the pace of the Ferraris (at least Massa anyway) was genuine. McLaren had a fight on their hands.

Hamilton stayed on the Prime tyres and rejoined in 6th place, behind Raikkonen. However, McLaren long-filled Hamilton, and he could definitely run 4 laps longer in the second stint than Massa. It was shaping up to be a thrilling race.

The rest of the first round of pit stops cycled through - Kubica pitted on lap 19, Glock, Vettel, and Kovalainen pitted on lap 21. Kovalainen in fact had pitted from the lead, and rejoined the race in 6th place. A lap later both Alonso and Raikkonen pitted. The Renault team were able to service their man quickly enough to keep Alonso ahead of Raikkonen as they exited the pits, but it was close - the two almost touched under braking for turn 1.

The midfield runners all elected to run very long on their first stints - Piquet pitted on lap 26, Coulthard and Fisichella on lap 30, Rosberg and Sutil on lap 31, Button on lap 32, and Barrichello and Nakajima on lap 33. During the stops, there were several small incidents with the refuelling equipment - firstly the Toyota team had a rig problem during Jarno Trulli's stop, then there were small spills and fires for Bourdais, Nakajima, and Barrichello. There were no major concerns, although Bourdais got a healthy does of fire extinguishant!

Meanwhile the race continued. The order was Massa, Hamilton, Kovalainen, Glock, Alonso, Raikkonen (whose timing transponder had failed for the second race in succession) Piquet, Trulli. The gap between Hamilton and Massa stabilised to around 3 seconds again, and it was looking like it was going to be close after the second round of pit stops. However, Massa began to up his tempo and had raised the gap to 4.9 seconds by lap 40. Even if Hamilton could run longer it looked as though Massa would still have the advantage.

Then on lap 41, disaster struck for Hamilton - a left-front puncture as he entered turn 2. Hamilton limped his car back to the pits for fresh rubber - he was forced to take on the unfavoured option tyres and furthermore would have to do a long stint on them. He rejoined the race in 10th place. Just 3 laps later, Massa pitted from the lead, and rejoined in second place, behind Heikki Kovalainen. When Kovalainen pitted 3 laps later, Massa regained the lead. With a comfortable victory all but assured of, Massa eased his pace - he ran low 1:23 laps where he had been running high 1:21 laps.

The race was not over though. Lewis Hamilton began to fight his way back, and when the pit stops had cycled through, he found himself in 6th place. Kimi Raikkonen was a man on a mission also. He fought hard with Alonso, even snaking off track under braking at turn two at one point. Eventually Alonso pitted on lap 51, and the path was cleared for Raikkonen, who slammed in a hot lap before he himself pitted. It was enough to leap-frog Alonso by quite a margin after the pit stops. From there, Raikkonen set about the man ahead of him - Timo Glock. Glock was well ahead of the Finn, but Raikkonen was flying, taking 1.8 seconds per lap out of the German and setting fastest lap of the race in the process. Glock, who up until that point had driven a fairly anonymous race, upped his tempo and even had an off track excursion at turn 1 as he pushed hard to stay ahead of Raikkonen.

Another Finn was pushing hard - Heikki Kovalainen. He had been some 20 seconds behind Massa, but Massa's easy pace had allowed the Finn to cut the gap in half. With ten laps to go, a gap of about 8 seconds, and Kovalainen gaining at around 8 tenths per lap, Massa would have to respond. Indeed Massa did respond, and he started lapping around half a second faster. The gap somewhat stabilised, and Massa looked assured of victory.

Then - disaster. Three laps from home, Felipe Massa's engine expired as he crossed the start/finish line. He coasted to a halt at the end of the pit wall. After having driven a faultless race, and after having made such a superb start to steal it away from Hamilton and McLaren, victory was cruelly denied him. The diminutive Brazilian was understandably despondent - he quietly slinked off into the Ferrari pits.

Heikki Kovalainen inherited the lead, with Glock second and Raikkonen third. The fight for second evaporated, though - after having got within 1.5 seconds of Glock, Raikkonen backed off. It was assumed that the reason was to save the engine in response to Felipe's problem, however Raikkonen was asked to back of the just prior to Felipe's problem - there was an apparent mechanical failure imminent on Raikkonen's car.

So, Heikki Kovalainen crossed the line to take a somewhat fortunate win. Nevertheless, he drove solidly all day and was there to pick up the pieces when the others retired. In doing so, he became the 100th ever Grand Prix winner and has joined such luminaries as Damon Hill and Fernando Alonso by taking his maiden win at the Hungaroring. Timo Glock took a well deserved second place - he had been quick all weekend and responded to Raikkonen's challenge admirably. Kimi Raikkonen will probably be left wondering what might have been after showing blistering pace in the last segment of the race, although he was fortunate to get a podium finish.

Perhaps the most fortunate man was Lewis Hamilton. He looked set to relinquish his world championship lead to Felipe Massa. As it now stands, though, he has a 5 point lead at the top of the table - one point greater than before. But with 7 races to go in the season, there is still everything to play for.

- Effwun

 

Final Classification

Position
Driver Time Position
Driver Time
1. Kovalainen
1:37:27.067
11. Coulthard +70.4
2. Glock +11.0 12. Button +1 Lap
3. Raikkonen +16.8 13. Nakajima +1 Lap
4. Alonso +21.6 14. Rosberg +1 Lap
5. Hamilton +23.0 15. Fisichella +1 Lap
6. Piquet +32.2 16. Barrichello
+2 Laps
7. Trulli +36.4 17. Massa Lap 68
8. Kubica +48.3 18. Bourdais +3 Laps
9. Webber +58.8 19. Sutil Lap 63
10. Heidfeld +67.7 20. Vettel Lap 23

Fastest lap - Kimi Raikkonen: 1:21.195 (lap 61)

 

The Alternative Podium Ceremony

1st - The John Watson Award for most places gained in the race: Nick Heidfeld (15th - 10th, 5 places)

2nd - The Olivier Grouillard Award for best roadblock: Fernando Alonso (for keeping Raikkonen behind him for two thirds of the race)

3rd - The Felipe Massa Award for worst luck: Felipe Massa ('nuff said)

Constructors - The David Coulthard Award for outstanding achievement in the field of complaining: Nick Heidfeld (for his over-the-top hand gestures to Bourdais in Qualifying)