Lewis Hamilton Secures F1 Lead With The Hungarian GP Win

The Hungarian GP saw the Brit, Lewis Hamilton, take a lead of six points over his teammate Nico Rosberg for the first time in the season standings. Hamilton started the race in the second spot where he passed Rosberg and then maintained a healthy lead over his peers. 

After the Final Practise on Saturday, where Rosberg managed to grab the pole position, and being cleared from an investigation over a yellow flag infringement issue. 

Along with Hamilton, Daniel Ricciardo was also able to pss Rosberg on turn one, though, his lead was short lived, as Nico regained the second stop at turn two. Meanwhile, by that time Lewis was out of Nico’s DRS (Drag Reduction System) range -- which was only enabled on lap three.

While leading the pack, Hamilton struggled with his tyres after the first pit stop. Meanwhile, Rosberg was able to close the gap a bit with the last ten laps remaining, however, couldn't turn that into a victory. 

Rosberg was consistently followed by Ricciardo in his Red Bull arrow, though, he wasn’t able to gain the second spot on the podium and finished third. 

Ricciardo was trailed closely by Sebastian Vettel, who finished fourth, rather upsetting for him when compared to his 2015 win on the same track.

The fight for the fifth spot turned out to be the most entertaining as Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen battled eagerly for the position. Raikkonen’s late first pit stop (on lap 29) helped him to massively close in on Verstappen from his 14th place on the starting grid.

Verstappen was being closely followed by the Ferrari -- after Raikkonen undertook a late second stop for new rubber. But, this didn't stop Verstappen from maintaining his lead until the end. Also, a little contact between the two into turn 2 on lap 47, made Raikkonen lose his front wing ultimately forcing him to finish sixth.

Finishing seventh was Fernando Alonso, who maintained the spot right from the start of the race and seemed quite comfortable in his unchallenged solitary stint. Whereas, his teammate, Jenson Button, had to retire following several issues with the car and a drive-through penalty for an ‘illegal’ radio communication.

The remaining top ten spots were filled by Carlos Sainz, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg, respectively.

Speaking of crashes, there was only one, coming from Jolyon Palmer who spun out of the 70-lap race. While time penalties were imposed on Esteban Gutierrez for ignoring blue flags and Daniil Kvyat for pit lane speeding.