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2015 Hungarian F1 GP: Sebastian Vettel Wins Thrilling Race

Sebastian Vettel has taken his second win as a Ferrari driver, fending off Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo in an unpredictable Hungarian Grand Prix. A late race Safety Car cut Vettel's twenty-second lead to nothing and he had over twenty laps to hol


Sebastian Vettel has taken his second win as a Ferrari driver, fending off Nico Rosberg and Daniel Ricciardo in an unpredictable Hungarian Grand Prix. A late race Safety Car cut Vettel's twenty-second lead to nothing and he had over twenty laps to hold off two determined challengers.

Neither of those challengers was Lewis Hamilton - he threw his weekend away in a series of mistakes that began with a poor start and ended with a lowly sixth place. He got lucky towards the end of the race when Rosberg fell out of second after clashing with Ricciardo.

PRACTICE AND QUALIFYING

The weekend started on a quiet note with the paddock mourning the death of Jules Bianchi who never regained consciousness after the terrible crash at last year's Japanese Grand Prix.

Sergio Perez livened up FP1, but not the way he would have liked. His rear suspension broke, pitching him into the barrier. He then went over on to his roll hoop when a wheel jammed underneath the front of the car. Perez escaped uninjured and the team sat out FP2 while they worked out what had happened.

Raikkonen had the first of a number of problems for the weekend, his front wing failing at turn 12.

Red Bull made an unexpected and welcome appearance towards the front, both Bulls splitting the Mercedes cars. Normal transmission resumed on Saturday with Mercedes fronting FP3. Ferrari had a scare with Raikkonen's car springing a leak, but it was fixed for qualifying.

As expected, the Mercedes locked out the front row, with Hamilton soundly beating Rosberg to the top spot. Daniel Ricciardo delivered on the promise of the competitive practice times, splitting Vettel in third and Raikkonen in fifth.

McLaren's promise evaporated when Button failed to get out of Q1 (ERS didn't work) and Alonso's car died in Q2 (after his team said it probably wouldn't), pushing it into pitlane to the cheers of the crowd.

RACE

Race day was sunny and warm, but without the gusty winds of Saturday. Massa caused an aborted start by being out of position and copped a five second time penalty for his trouble.

Vettel and Raikkonen got off the line beautifully. Hamilton did not and was swamped by the two red cars and his own teammate. Ricciardo's start was awful, falling to seventh after a heart-stopping wheel-bang with Bottas.

Hamilton chucked it off the road trying to pass Rosberg, sending the Briton through the gravel and back to tenth. He claimed Rosberg had made two defensive moves but Lewis' move was perhaps far too optimistic.

Bottas was a big winner on the opening lap, moving to fourth ahead of Hulkenberg who had made up six places off the start. 

Ricciardo was soon on the radio to tell the pitwall that Kvyat was in trouble, the response being to tell the young Russian not to hold up his teammate. He relented on lap eight and allowed the Australian past, who romped away to attack the Force India.

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