Kimi Raikkonen, driving the only Ferrari in the race after Brazilian team mate Felipe Massa suffered a serious head injury in qualifying, was second in a return to what seemed like a vanished order after nine races dominated by Brawn and Red Bull.
“It’s an incredible feeling to be back here after what feels like such a long time away and with such a struggle,” Hamilton told reporters. “We’ve caught up quite a bit but we never really thought we had the pace to win.
“It is incredibly special to get back up here, not only on the podium. To get a win, it’s amazing”.
Australian Mark Webber finished third for Red Bull to go second in the championship, 18.5 points behind Brawn’s Jenson Button with seven races remaining. Brawn lead Red Bull by 15.5 points in the constructors’ standings.
Button had a frustrating afternoon in the Hungarian heat, the Briton struggling to get performance out of the car’s tyres and finishing seventh after starting eighth.
His unhappiness was only relieved by the retirement of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, his previous closest rival, and seeing the top two places filled by drivers whose title dreams had long disappeared.
Vettel collided with Raikkonen at the start in what was later deemed to be a racing incident.
Hamilton’s victory, 11.5 seconds ahead of 2007 champion Raikkonen, was the 24-year-old’s first since China last October, and 10th of his career. It was his Mercedes-powered team’s first podium finish of the year.
Pussycat doll
Martin Whitmarsh joined the champagne-spraying Hamilton on the podium for his first win as McLaren team boss while the driver’s Pussycat Doll pop singer girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger shed a tear of happiness.
In a footnote for statisticians, it was the first success for a car equipped with the new KERS energy recovery system.
Germany’s Nico Rosberg was fourth for Williams ahead of McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen, last year’s surprise winner in Budapest, and Toyota’s Timo Glock.
Italian Jarno Trulli took the final point for Toyota.
Renault’s double world champion Fernando Alonso had started on pole but the Spaniard lasted only 17 laps before retiring after earlier having to limp back to the pits on three wheels.
Stewards took a dim view of that, in the light of Massa’s accident and the death of 18-year-old Briton Henry Surtees who was hit on the head by a tyre in a Formula Two race last weekend, and suspended Renault for the next race.
The team immediately appealed a sanction that would force them to sit out Alonso’s home Valencia Grand Prix.
His compatriot Jaime Alguersuari, driving a Toro Rosso, became Formula One’s youngest ever starter at the age of 19 years and 125 days. The teenager finished 15th, lapped but ahead of Swiss rookie team mate Sebastien Buemi.
Ferrari paid tribute to Massa, in intensive care in a Budapest hospital after emergency surgery on Saturday, before the race with a pit board declaring “Forza Felipe, Siamo Con Te” (Come on Felipe, we are with you).
