ING Magyar Nagydij(Budapest) – Hungarian Grand Prix 2009
The Hungarian Grand Prix 2009 was action-packed and eventful, to say the least. Before reporting on the race, three2tango would like to look back at the most unfortunate incident to have taken place in recent F1 history – Felippe Massa was involved in a freak accident during Saturday qualifying, and did not take part in the race. Loking back at the incident, one has to agree that Massa was very, very unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, Massa’s accident and Henry Surtees’ death in a very similar incident(in Formula2 about a week back – the 18-year old Surtees was struck on the helmet by a wheel that came loose from another driver’s car which had crashed) has made us all realise the bitter truth - ”motorsport racing still isn’t completely safe and it would never be”. In the second qualifying session, Massa and fellow Brazilian Rubens Barichello were on their hot laps. Barichello was a good 4 to 5 seconds in front of Massa, when a spring from the third damper of his car’s suspension came loose. The spring, which weighed about 0.8kg, was bouncing around on the track when Massa came fying at full-throttle and got struck by the flying debri on his helmet. The high-speed impact knocked him out and Massa then ran into a tyre barrier. The Ferrari driver suffered a skull fracture, and was air-lifted to the nearby hospital very quickly.
But as they say, the show must go on, and it did. At the end of qualifying, it
was three Renault-powered cars in front. Fernando Alonso secured his first pole position of the season, after a lap which was on the limit, and error-free. At the end of the qualifying session, the timing system had crashed and nobody had any clue about who had set what time; not even the drivers. After the bizarre incident came the confirmation about the qualifying order. The pre-race weight statistics which were published suggested that Alonso is very lightly-fulled. Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were P2 and P3 respectively. But the biggest threat for the three of them at the start seemed to be Lewis Hamilton with his KERS-enabled McLaren, which had shown good pace all weekend. He started P4 and although couldn’t get the race lead, still had a very good start to the race. He moved into the second place behind Alonso, but Mark Webber took the place back in the 2nd lap. Alonso did open a bit of a gap, but it didn’t look good enough to give the Spaniard a race win, as all his competitors seemed to be running two-stop strategies. However, Alonso should have had a strong points finish, only if the Reanult pit-crew hadn’t got his first pit stop dreadfully wrong. It looked like a clean and regular stop, but Fernando came out with his front-right wheel not attached properly. First, it’s fairing went flying, and a few corner’s later, the wheel itself came-off. Luckily no one was hit by the flying wheel, but the incident led to the Renault team being banned from the next race(European Grand Prix in Valencia), in four weeks time. The ban looks quite harsh, but it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to the recent accidents involved in Motorsport. Renault will appeal the ban but if things stay as they are at the moment, Spaniard Fernando Alonso(and his teammate) would miss the race in Valencia in front of all his home supporters.
In the meantime, Hamilton worked-out a breathtaking pass on Webber, as he hit his ‘magic button’ and dived around the outside of Webber at turn 2, on a track infamous for being too hard to overtake on. Hamilton was setting the pace from that point onwards, and after a very long time, the Brit was in a position to control a race. To his credit, the defending World Champion did an awesome job when he finally got his hands on a fast car. The McLaren had brought some upgrades for the last race in Germany, and the KERS cars were able to consistently set the fastest sector 1 times here in the Hungaroring. All this worked to his favour. Webber and Raikkonen(who was running 3rd owing to his good start) pitted on the same lap, and the Finn was able to come out ahead, after the Red Bull team had done a poor job with Webber’s stop and also released him as Raikkonen was passing-by. However, the pair avoided contact, and came out of pits after swapping positions. Hamiton then went in and out of the pits and was able to stay in front of Raikkonen and Webber. Sebastian Vettel had a forgettable race, as he had a poor start, when he fell to P7 after what looked like a little brush with Raikkonen going into turn two. The contact must have damaged something with his car as the young German complained of “undrivability”. The team tried summoning him into the pits for new tyres and front wing, but within a few laps he had to retire from the race.
Jenson Button and his Brawn didn’t look as competitive as everybody had
expected them to be in the warmer Hungary. He tried running long in his first stint, and though he could move into P2 before his first stop, a switch to soft tyres on lap 25 affected his pace, and all that he could manage was a 7th place finish. Timo Glock also ran two long stints and he finished a strong 6th, and behind Heikki Kovalainen. Nico Rosberg had another good run on his Williams as he finished 4th. Jarno Trulli was the final point scorer, and Kazuki Nakajima(9th) and Rubens Barichello(10th) failed to pick up any. Contrary to expectations, F1 rookie Jaime Alguersuari showed good maturity and speed. In fact he finished in front of his teammate Sebastian Buemi. Buemi had spun his car twice but the 19-year old rookie never put a wheel wrong and silenced his critics who claimed he was too immature to race as he had done no testing in an F1 car, thanks to the ban on in-season testing.
This was, thus the first race won by a KERS car. Formula 1 now takes a 4-week break, before the next round at the Valencia street circuit. Thankfully, there are positive updates on Massa, who has had a surgery for his broken skull which was successful. Ferrari have also announced Massa’s replacement for the rest of the season, and it is none other than the 7-time World Champion Michael Schumacher who is making a comeback after he had retired at the end of the 2006 season. Only time will tell how successful the German great would prove to be, but the move would surely help increase the viewership for the sport worldwide. In the championship hunt, Button has picked up two crucial points. He now leads with 70 from Webber on 51.5, Vettel on 47 and Rubens Barrichello on 44. Brawn continue to lead the constructors’ championship on 114, with Red Bull closer still on 98.5s. McLaren’s improvement would please BrawnGP as they could steal some points from the Red Bull bag in the coming races. Can Button and Brawn GP hold-on until the season’s end? Wel, let’s wait and watch. But most importantly, three2tango wishes Felippe Massa a speedy recovery and all the strength to his family. And we are eagerly waiting to see him back in action.
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