BUDAPEST, (Reuters) – Red Bull’s Australian Daniel Ricciardo won a dramatic Hungarian Grand Prix yesterday while Lewis Hamilton stunned championship-leading Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg with the drive of the day from pitlane to podium.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso took a fighting second and Rosberg, who had started on pole position looking like a runaway winner, finished fourth and saw his 14 point lead over Hamilton trimmed to 11.
The German was caught out by two safety car interventions that turned the race on its head – and also by Hamilton refusing to give anything away despite being asked controversially to let him through.
With eight races to go, and double points for the last in Abu Dhabi, Rosberg has 202 points to Hamilton’s 191. Mercedes have a 174-point lead over champions Red Bull in the constructors’ standings.
Ricciardo, a revelation in his first year at Red Bull, bellowed in elation after he took the chequered flag 5.2 seconds ahead of Alonso for his second win of the season and his career.
“It feels as good as the first, it really does,” beamed the Australian, who was triumphant in Canada in June, after a rollercoaster of a race packed with incident.
“The safety car at the beginning played to our advantage…when the second one came out it didn’t really help us, but we managed to pull it off at the end.”
All of the top four had led over the course of a race that started after a brief downpour, was interrupted by two big crashes, continued with the ever-present threat of rain and finished on a knife-edge.
Just 6.3 seconds separated the top four, with Hamilton crossing the line just half a second clear of Rosberg.
TYRE GAMBLE
Ricciardo, who had led earlier in the race and was on fresher tyres, swept past Hamilton three laps from the end and then overtook a determined Alonso to regain the lead for good.
“We took a gamble. We risked today just trying to get the victory and we went very close,” said Alonso of his second podium finish of the season.
“We need some crazy races to get some podiums and today we took the opportunity.”
Behind them, Rosberg – who made three stops to Alonso and Hamilton’s two – was closing in remorselessly and was all over the back of his team mate’s car as they started the final lap.
Hamilton hung on for a podium finish that had looked improbable on Saturday, but he was unhappy with his team for asking him to let Rosberg through with a third of the race remaining.
The German had yet to make his final stop, whereas Hamilton had done his final tyre change already and knew Rosberg was sure to come back at him with a vengeance in the closing stages.
“I’m not letting him past me, if he gets close enough to overtake he can overtake,” Hamilton had said over the radio.
