2015 Hungarian Grand Prix

Lore & Background

Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull was the defending race winner, while Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes came into the race with a 17-point lead over teammate Nico Rosberg. During Saturday's qualifying, Hamilton took his ninth pole position of the season in only the tenth race, ahead of Rosberg. At the start of the race the two Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen took first and second respectively from the Mercedes; the first win for Ferrari in Hungary since 2004. An eventful race saw a safety car period and several mistakes from both Mercedes drivers, leading to Hamilton and Rosberg finishing sixth and eighth, while the two Red Bull drivers scored the team's first podium positions of the season. As a result, Hamilton extended his lead over Rosberg to 21 points, while Vettel moved closer to the pair, another 21 points behind Rosberg. This was the first race without a Mercedes driver on the podium since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix.

In Their Own Story

The sky over Budapest turned a bruised purple as the first drops of rain began to fall, turning the track into a mirror. Inside the cockpit, Daniel Ricciardo gripped the wheel, his eyes darting between the spray and the rear wing of Daniil Kvyat ahead. The radio crackled with warnings from the pit wall about standing water, but the pace was relentless. On Lap 43, the world tilted. A patch of aquaplaning caught Ricciardo's rear tires; his car snapped sideways. He tried to correct, but the momentum carried him into the path of Kvyat, who was braking hard for a corner entry. The impact was sickeningly loud even through the helmet noise—carbon fiber shattering against carbon fiber. Both cars spun out, sliding helplessly toward the barriers as the crowd gasped. In the pit garage, the engineers watched in horror as two red lights blinked out on the screen; silence instantly replaced the roar of the engines. The telemetry confirmed the inevitable: both cars were destroyed beyond repair. There would be no recovery drive back to the paddock; only tow trucks and a somber debrief remained for the team that had hoped for glory, finding instead a shattered chassis and a fractured season momentum.

Reader's Guide

The Hungarian Grand Prix marked the first Formula One race after the passing of former Marussia driver Jules Bianchi on 17 July 2015, who had crashed at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix and remained in a coma for nine months. Drivers and teams paid tribute to Bianchi, many of them in the form of messages written on helmets and cars. A minute of silence was held before the race start on Sunday in commemoration of Bianchi. The drivers, and members of the Bianchi family (parents and siblings), linked in a chain arm in arm, with their helmets surrounding Jules' in the middle. Tyre supplier Pirelli opted to bring the yellow-marked soft and white-marked medium tyres to the Hungaroring, the same choice as the year before. Minor changes were made to the track, renewing catch fences and tyre barriers, while removing the higher curb at the apex of turn 6 in order to prevent the cars from lifting off the ground. Generally, the track is considered to be one of the slowest in the calendar, with the fourteen corners and few straights making it hard to overtake. Going into the weekend, Lewis Hamilton was leading the drivers' championship with 194 points, 17 more than his closest rival and teammate Nico Rosberg. Third placed Sebastian Vettel was another 42 points behind, followed by Valtteri Bottas on 77 points. In the constructors' standings, Mercedes was leading on 371, followed by Ferrari with 211 points, and Williams a further 60 points behind.

Did You Know?

• This was the first race without a Mercedes driver on the podium since the 2013 Brazilian Grand Prix.
• The two Red Bull drivers scored the team's first podium positions of the season.
• Ferrari's win in Hungary was its first since 2004.