Hungary – Race: Synthesis of Strategies

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) confirmed his domination of the weekend in Hungary by winning the race this Sunday, after being the fastest in free practice and qualifying. The Englishman made the most of a two-stop strategy to win the event with a one-second lead, before the summer break and nine races left this season. Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) finished fifth in the Grand Prix after qualifying sixth and increased his lead in the drivers’ world championship to 40 points.

The top 10 started with the soft P Zero Yellow tire, provided alongside the medium P Zero White. Mark Webber’s Red Bull, in 11th place, was the highest positioned car on the grid to start with the medium compound and finished in 8th place. The only other drivers to start with the medium compound were the two Marussia drivers and Pedro de la Rosa (HRT).

Hamilton took command from the start and stopped on the 18th lap, giving the advantage to Romain Grosjean’s Lotus (qualified second). He regained the lead after the Frenchman’s stop, which lasted a little longer. Lewis Hamilton’s last pit stop happened on the 40th lap. He put on a second set of mediums, allowing Kimi Räikkönen (Lotus) to temporarily take the lead. After 25 good laps on softs during which he overtook three cars, Räikkönen positioned himself second ahead of his teammate Grosjean at the end of his last stop. With 20 laps to go and fresher P Zero White medium tires, Räikkönen threatened Hamilton, putting intense pressure on the Englishman until the finish. Grosjean finished third, delivering a double podium for Lotus.

The top 3 adopted a two-stop strategy, with Hamilton starting on softs and two stints on mediums. Lotus decided to go for two stints on softs and one on mediums. Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull is the highest-placed car that opted for three stops: fourth, with Vettel credited with the fastest lap on the soft compound. Jenson Button’s McLaren and Mark Webber’s Red Bull also adopted three stops, finishing 6th and 8th respectively.

Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: Due to the mixed conditions until today, the teams still lacked running time on soft tires with a full tank before the race and started it with question marks. The degradation of both compounds proved to be good, with only a few tenths of a second per lap making the difference between the soft and the medium, which offered the teams options in terms of strategies and allowed them to adopt a flexible approach.

Lewis Hamilton’s pace in qualifying allowed him to save a set of soft tires for the race, which he made the most of to build an impressive lead, although he had to fight until the end.

As usual, we saw that overtaking was very difficult on the narrow Hungaroring. Teams therefore tried to adopt strategies allowing them to pass their rivals in the pits. Thanks to this variety of tactics, we once again witnessed a very close finish, although the cars following closely tend to wear out their tires faster due to aerodynamic disturbances.

We experienced an unforgettable first half of the season, with one of the closest starts, where the tires clearly made the difference, and we look forward to the season restarting at the beginning of September.

[From the official press release published by Pirelli]

To better understand this graph, you can use the FIA’s lap-by-lap synthesis by clicking here.

Summary of Pit Stops at the 2012 Hungarian Grand Prix: