2009 Hungarian Grand Prix

2009 Hungarian Grand Prix
Previous←	2009 German Grand Prix
Round	10 of 2009
Next→	2009 European Grand Prix
Race Details
Date	July 26, 2009
Official Name	XXV ING Magyar Nagydíj
Location	Hungaroring Budapest, Hungary
Course	Permanent racing facility 4.381 km (2.722 mi)
Distance	70 laps, 306.67 km (190.556 mi)
Pole Position
Driver	Fernando Alonso Renault
Time	1:21.569
Fastest Lap
Driver	Mark Webber Red Bull
Time	1:21.931 on lap 65
Podium
First	Lewis Hamilton
Second	Kimi Räikkönen
Third	Mark Webber
Lap Leaders

The 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix (officially XXV ING Magyar Nagydíj) was the tenth race of the 2009 Formula One Season, held on July 26th on the Hungaroring.

Renault's Fernando Alonso took a surprising pole position during qualifying, his first since the 2007 Italian Grand Prix. 2008 British F3 champion Jaime Alguersuari made his debut in Toro Rosso, replacing Sébastien Bourdais who had been underperforming. The weekend was however overshadowed by the serious accident of Ferrari's Felipe Massa during qualifying. At the end of Q2, a spring broke off from the Brawn GP of Rubens Barrichello, bouncing on the track and hit Massa on the head, above his left eye, knocking him unconscious, resulting him colliding into the barriers at Turn 4 of the circuit. Massa suffered a skull fracture that ruled him out of the remainder of the season.

Lewis Hamilton of McLaren-Mercedes was the winner of the race after Alonso retired as a result of a fuel pump problem as well as a pit stop gone wrong, where he was released with a wheel bolt improperly attached, resulting a wheel to come off his car. Massa's team mate Kimi Räikkönen finished second, while Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber completed the podium.

Background

Heading into the weekend, Jenson Button led the Drivers' Championship on 68 points for Brawn GP, 21 points clear of Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel. Vettel's teammate Mark Webber, who signed a new one-year contract before the race weekend, was 1.5 points behind Vettel and an equal number ahead of Button's teammate Rubens Barrichello.

Brawn GP also held the lead in the Constructors' Championship, with a lead of 19.5 points from a resurgent Red Bull Racing, who were a further 48 points clear of Toyota. Toyota held an advantage of only 1.5 points over defending champions Scuderia Ferrari.

Webber won the previous race in Germany from pole position, to claim his first win at the 130th attempt. Despite an early drive-through penalty assessed for a dangerous maneuver to keep the Brawn GP car of Barrichello behind him at the start, the Australian driver had enough time in hand to rejoin out front and win by nearly ten seconds from Red Bull Racing teammate Vettel.

Felipe Massa was third, to earn his first podium of the 2009 season to date. Championship leader Button could only muster a fifth-place finish, after being overhauled by the one-stopping Williams of Nico Rosberg, who finished fourth having started fifteenth.

"I don't really care what all the people say, I just do my work. I do what I know, to be honest. I am here because Red Bull just asked me to, as I do Formula 3 or World Series or GP2, I don't care. I just drive the cars. That's my job and that's what I enjoy doing in life. I'm here because Red Bull just sent me a message telling me that I have to drive this car so I'm here. I don't care what other people say, that's the main thing, first of all. And the second thing is that I know what my expectation is, I know what my target is. I know that today I didn't make any mistakes and I hope tomorrow I don't and even in the race and that's how I work at the end. My target here is to drive the car and not make mistakes. Then we will talk about times and about speed. But I don't feel I am a danger, not really."

Jaime Alguersuari, who was unfazed by the criticism directed at him for being too inexperienced for Formula One.

Prior to the race, the Hungarian Grand Prix had produced different winners for each of the last seven years, with Heikki Kovalainen (McLaren-Mercedes; 2008), Lewis Hamilton (McLaren–Mercedes; 2007), Button (Honda; 2006), Kimi Räikkönen (McLaren–Mercedes; 2005), Michael Schumacher (Ferrari; 2004), Fernando Alonso (Renault; 2003) and Barrichello (Ferrari; 2002) taking the chequered flag. The Hungaroring had also been the scene of the maiden victories of Button, Alonso and Kovalainen.

Much of the talk prior to the weekend was about the appointment of Jaime Alguersuari to replace Sébastien Bourdais at Scuderia Toro Rosso. Alguersuari did not have any circuit testing experience in a Formula One car, and had only undertaken straight-line aerodynamic tests the week before the Grand Prix, in Faenza. Felipe Massa felt that Alguersuari — who had 118 prior single-seater races under his belt, with 17 wins — was too young and inexperienced to be driving a contemporary Formula One car. Mark Webber and Jenson Button also expressed their fears about Alguersuari driving at the Hungaroring. However, Sebastian Vettel came to the support of the Spaniard, saying that he should take his time to build up speed

Entry list

The full entry list for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix is outlined below:

No.	Driver	Entrant	Constructor	Chassis	Engine	Model	Tyre

Practice Overview

Three practice sessions were held before the race; the first was held on Friday morning and the second on Friday afternoon. Both sessions lasted 1 hour and 30 minutes with weather conditions dry throughout, the air temperature at 24 °C (75 °F), and the track temperature at 30 °C (86 °F) for session one. Session two saw the air temperature at 28 °C (82 °F), and the track temperature at 45 °C (113 °F). The third session was held on Saturday morning and lasted an hour, and was also dry throughout, with the air temperature at 21 °C (70 °F), and the track temperature at 26 °C (79 °F). McLaren were the pace-setters in both Friday practice sessions, with Kovalainen topping the first and Hamilton topping the second.

Apart from the upturn in McLaren's performance, the usual Friday pace-setters were also competitive, with Williams drivers Nico Rosberg and Kazuki Nakajima both setting times that were good enough for top five positions in both sessions. The Red Bull of Mark Webber was also in the top five in both sessions, as he continued his recent good form.

Brawn GP implemented their usual strategy of running with fuel during Friday practice sessions. In the first session, Jenson Button was tenth and Rubens Barrichello was thirteenth. In the second session, Barrichello improved to seventh place, while Button dropped back to thirteenth. That said, Button's lap time was only 0.727 seconds off the fastest time of Hamilton, in an extremely tight session.

Jarno Trulli was the top Toyota in both sessions, finishing up sixth and eighth, beating teammate Timo Glock, who was fourteenth and tenth. Renault had a mixed session, with Alonso and Nelson Piquet, Jr. struggling to get the ideal setup for the car. Alonso was seven tenths of a second off in both sessions, while Piquet improving to just a tenth and half behind his teammate. Massa and Räikkönen posted times good enough for P7 and P8 in the first session, but were adrift in the second session, with neither driver in the top ten, which left the Ferrari drivers disappointed with the lack of pace.

BMW Sauber were another team to struggle in practice, with times some six tenths of a second off the pace, which left both drivers unhappy with the setup. Nick Heidfeld's time in the second session was their best showing, ending up in ninth position. Force India outpaced Toro Rosso in both sessions, with both cars lapping within a second of the best times. Giancarlo Fisichella (16th and 17th) and Adrian Sutil (18th and 16th) were both confident that they could improve on those times on Saturday. Sébastien Buemi found himself doing much of the setup work for the Italian outfit, improving his lap time by eight tenths of a second, between sessions. Alguersuari produced a solid performance in both sessions, but still ranked last in both sessions. Each driver completed 82 laps over the two sessions.

McLaren again topped the times during the Saturday practice session with Hamilton posting the best time. Heidfeld was a surprise second for BMW Sauber, with Nico Rosberg in third. Kovalainen was fourth, ahead of the Toro Rosso of Buemi and the Toyota of Glock. Glock's session was far from trouble-free, as his Toyota developed a hydraulic leak during its first flying lap. He returned to the track just before the end of the session, to record the sixth best time. Only seven tenths of a second split Heidfeld in second from Barrichello's Brawn in thirteenth. At one point, Jaime Alguersuari was as high as second position, before falling down to 18th by the end. Both Force Indias lapped slower than the teenager, with Sutil also having an incident, misjudging turn eight and hit the barrier.

Qualifying

Q1

The first part of qualifying saw Rosberg top the times, with a lap of 1:20.793, towards the end of the session. Hamilton and Webber were the only other drivers to record laps in the 1:20s. Alguersuari, who was 19th with several minutes remaining, slowed out of turn 12 with a hydraulic failure that left him unable to return to the pits. He fell to 20th and last on the grid, after Sutil (who moved up to 18th) lapped quicker than he did. The two were joined on the sidelines by the BMW Saubers of Heidfeld and Robert Kubica, and the second Force India of Fisichella.

Q2

After a seven-minute break, the second part of the qualifying session got underway. With just a second covering the fifteen remaining drivers, many drivers set their quickest laps in the final few minutes of the session. As the session ended, the Ferrari of Massa, who was sixth at the time, was involved in a serious accident at turn four. Replays showed debris striking his Schuberth helmet, 1 inch above the left eye, when he was travelling at 260 km/h (162 mph). The impact knocked him unconscious, with his car straying towards the grass verge on the inside of turn four. The onboard footage from his car showed that he had his feet on both the accelerator and the brake pedals. The Ferrari decelerated at a force of between 0.6 and 1.4 G and impacted with the barrier at 100 km/h (62 mph). After the car imbedded itself in the tyre barrier, the engine could be heard still revving on the limiter, indicating that Massa's foot was still pressing the accelerator and that he was thus unconscious. This accident came just six days after FIA Formula Two Championship driver Henry Surtees was fatally injured after being struck on the head by a wheel bouncing across the circuit at the Brands Hatch track in the United Kingdom, and provoked some discussion about the safety of open cockpit racing cars. The debris, a spring from the rear suspension damper (weighing around 800 grams (1.76 lb)), was suspected of having come from the car of Barrichello, who had reported that something had come loose minutes beforehand. Brawn confirmed the part had indeed come from Barrichello's car, and changed the same part on teammate Button's car ahead of the race. It was also subjected to an inspection during the third qualifying session, leaving Button with only one run for qualifying, due to the lengthy inspection.

Q3

Despite Massa's accident, some drivers improved their times towards the end of the session as they had passed the zone before the accident, meaning that Massa fell to eighth position. Button and Nakajima both progressed into the third part of qualifying, with their times set despite the yellow flag at turn four for Massa's accident. Barrichello's problem meant that he and the Brawn team missed out on the top ten shootout for the first time this season. He was joined on the sidelines by Buemi, Glock, Nelson Piquet, Jr. and Trulli. Even though Massa's time was quick enough to progress to Q3, his crash ruled him out of any further participation in the session. He was slowly extricated from his damaged Ferrari, and taken to the infield medical center, where he was stabilized before being airlifted to hospital. This meant that there were only nine drivers in the final part of qualifying, which was delayed by twenty minutes due to the lengthy amount of time taken to remove Massa, repair the tire barrier and check the track for any further debris.

With qualifying nearing its conclusion, the official timing system malfunctioned, leaving the drivers bemused in the pit lane afterwards, asking each other their times for comparisons. The problem was later revealed by Formula One Management and LG as being a broken cable. When the timing system came back online, Fernando Alonso discovered that he had set the fastest time, recording his first pole since the 2007 Italian Grand Prix. Joining him on the front row was Vettel, with Webber and Hamilton on row two. On row three were Rosberg, who was top when the system went down, and defending race-winner Kovalainen. When the cars' starting weights were released post-qualifying, Alonso was light compared to all those around him. He was some 17.5 kg lighter than Vettel, and at the extreme, 27 kg lighter than Button, who qualified eighth.

Ferrari latterly confirmed that Massa would miss the Grand Prix due to his accident. He suffered a head cut, bone damage to his skull and a concussion, and remained under observation in intensive care, in the Állami Egészségügyi Központ military hospital in Budapest.[36] He underwent successful surgery for the injuries he suffered in his accident. This meant that for the first time since the 2005 United States Grand Prix, a field of fewer than 20 drivers took part in a Grand Prix. It was also the first time that Ferrari fielded only one car in the race since the 2002 French Grand Prix when Rubens Barrichello failed to start due to ignition problems.

Qualifying Results

Cars that use KERS are marked with ‡

Pos.	No.	Driver	Team		Q1			Q2			Q3		Grid
					Pos	Time		Pos	Time		Pos	Time
1	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault			1:21.313			1:20.826		1	1:21.569	1
2	15	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault			1:21.178			1:20.604		2	1:21.607	2
3	14	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault			1:20.964		1	1:20.358		3	1:21.741	3
4	1‡	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes			1:20.842			1:20.465		4	1:21.839	4
5	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota		1	1:20.793			1:20.862		5	1:28.130	5
6	2‡	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes			1:21.659			1:20.807		6	1:22.095	6
7	4‡	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari			1:21.500			1:20.647		7	1:222.468	7
8	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes			1:21.471			1:20.707		8	1:22.835	8
9	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota			1:21.407			1:20.570		9	1:222.835	9
10	3‡	Felipe Massa	Ferrari			1:21.420			1:20.823		10	No time set	*
11	12	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari			1:21.571		11	1:31.002				10
12	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota			1:21.416		12	1:21.082				11
13	23	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes			1:21.558		13	1:21.222				12
14	10	Timo Glock	Toyota			1:21.584		14	1:21.242				13
15	8	Nelson Piquet Jr	Renault			1:21.278		15	1:21.389				14
16	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber		16	1:21.738							15
17	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes		17	1:42.577							16
18	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes		18	1:21.868							17
19	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber		19	1:21.901							18
20	11	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari		20	1:22.359							19

• *Felipe Massa was injured in Q2 and therefore did not set a time in Q3.
  • Owing to Massa's inability to start, all cars behind him moved up one place to close the gap.

Race

Report

The conditions on the grid were dry before the race, the air temperature at 26 °C (79 °F), and the track temperature at 43 °C (109 °F). The formation lap for the race began at 14:00 local time (UTC+2), with the race beginning a couple of minutes later. Alonso retained his pole position lead into the first corner, followed by a fast-starting Hamilton, Webber, Räikkönen and Vettel, who had made a slow start from the "dirty" side of the grid. Hamilton and Räikkönen nearly touched on the run to turn one, which in effect slowed the Finn slightly and allowed Webber to maintain third.[38] Hamilton ran slightly wide on the exit of the first corner, which allowed Webber to challenge him. The counter-effect caused Räikkönen and Vettel to stack up, with the German's Red Bull making slight contact with the rear of the Ferrari. Vettel lost further places to Rosberg and Kovalainen as a result of the incident. Räikkönen would latterly be investigated after the race for both of his first lap incidents.[38] At the end of the first lap, Sutil came into the pits from 19th place with water pressure problems. The problem was terminal and he became the first retirement of the afternoon. Alonso started to pull away from the field, setting his fastest lap of the race – 1:23.529 – on lap four.

Positions remained static until the start of lap five. Hamilton pressured Webber in turn one, and with the aid of the KERS button, overtook the Australian before turn two. Once clear of Webber, Hamilton started to cut into the gap that Alonso had built up at the front. Alonso's Renault was suffering from graining on its rear tyres (when the tyres shed little bits of rubber before sticking to the tread of the tyre, effectively separating the tyre from the track surface very slightly), and also a fuel pump problem, which forced him to change to a different fuel setting on the car. Alonso pitted on lap twelve, and was stationary for 6.4 seconds. However, he was released with his front right wheel incorrectly attached, causing the wheel-mounted brake duct or "spinner" to rotate while the wheel was turning. The duct then fell off and disintegrated at turn four, as Alonso continued to go round the circuit. The wheel then parted from the car at turn nine, and Alonso drove the car back to the pits on three wheels. The missing wheel was replaced, enabling him to continue in the race, but he returned to the pits on the following lap, as the earlier fuel pump problem proved terminal.

With Hamilton extending his lead to almost six seconds – including his fastest lap of 1:22.479 on lap sixteen – Räikkönen and Webber both pitted on lap nineteen. Räikkönen was at a standstill for 8.3 seconds, while a slight problem with the fuel rig cost Webber valuable seconds. He was eventually released just as the Ferrari was trundling down the pit lane. The two cars just avoided a collision, which almost caused the Red Bull to career into a number of the Williams mechanics, who were standing in the pit lane at the time. Hamilton pitted the following lap, but was slightly delayed by Rosberg's Williams, which had entered the pit lane as Hamilton was about to exit the McLaren pit box. This promoted Kovalainen into the lead, followed by Vettel but both drivers pitted at the end of lap 21, to hand the lead back to Hamilton. Vettel's sluggish pit-stop cost him track position, as he filtered out behind Rosberg.

During Hamilton's stint on a second set of super-soft tyres, he was told by race engineer Phil Prew to look after his tyres as he had a comfortable gap of 15 seconds over Räikkönen. Championship leader Button, who was heavily fuelled at the start, had improved up to second by the time of his first stop on lap 25. Vettel was struggling with his car, and was passed for eighth position by Barrichello on lap 27. He then reported to his race engineer Guillaume Rocquelin that something was broken on his car. He pitted at the end of the lap from eleventh position, having lost more places, and his pit crew routinely replaced the nosecone and took a detailed look at the rear suspension. He rejoined a lap down before retiring on lap 30. Debutant Alguersuari made his first Formula One pit stop on lap 28, when running in thirteenth place. Glock also moved into the points-scoring positions at this stage of the race by using the strategy of a long 32-lap first stint. Buemi spun at turn two on lap 38, and subsequently rejoined the circuit behind his teammate Alguersuari.

Hamilton was left unchallenged for the rest of the race, making his final pit stop on lap 46,[45] and came home to win his first race as World Champion. This was his first victory since the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix, his tenth in total, and also the first time that he had won at a circuit twice, having won at nine different circuits previously. This was also the first occasion on which a KERS car had won a Grand Prix; Räikkönen (in another KERS car) came in second, setting his fastest lap on the final lap. Webber finished third, a result which moved him into second in the championship standings past Vettel. Webber also recorded the first fastest lap of his career, with a lap of 1:21.931 on lap 65. Rosberg finished fourth for the third race in succession, heading home Kovalainen, Glock, Button and Trulli rounded out the top eight point scorers. Outside the point-scoring positions were Nakajima, Barrichello (the first time that a Brawn car had finished a race outside the points), Heidfeld, Piquet, Kubica, Fisichella and the Toro Rossos of Alguersuari and Buemi. With Button's seventh place, his lead in the drivers' championship over Webber was cut by four points, to 18.5 points

Results

Cars that use KERS are marked with ‡

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1‡	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	70	1h 38m 23.876s	4	10
2	4‡	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	70	+11.529	7	8
3	14	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	70	+16.886	3	6
4	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	70	+26.967	5	5
5	2‡	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	70	+34.392	6	4
6	10	Timo Glock	Toyota	70	+35.237	13	3
7	22	Jenson Button	Brawn-Mercedes	70	+55.088	8	2
8	9	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	70	+1:08.172	11	1
9	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	70	+1:08.74	9
10	19	Rubens Barrichello	Brawn-Mercedes	70	+1:09.256	12
11	6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	70	+1:10.612	15
12	8	Nelson Piquet Jr	Renault	70	+1:11.512	14
13	5	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	70	+1:14.046	18
14	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Mercedes	69	+1 Lap	16
15	11	Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso	69	+1 Lap	12
16	12	Sébastien Buemi	Toro Rosso	69	+1 Lap	10
Ret	15	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull-Renault	29	Suspension	2
Ret	7	Fernando Alonso	Renault	15	Fuel pump/Loose wheel	1
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1	Water pressure	17
DNS	3‡	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	0	Injured in qualifying

Milestones

• Debut race for Jaime Alguersuari.
  • Alguersuari also became the youngest driver to start and finish a race at 19 years and 125 days before his record was broken by Max Verstappen.
• First fastest lap for Mark Webber.
• Fernando Alonso's first pole position since the 2007 Italian Grand Prix, and his only pole in 2009.
• Renault's first pole position since the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix.
• Lewis Hamilton's tenth victory.
  • This is also Hamilton's first out of two victories in 2009, and his first as a world champion.
• The first victory for a KERS-equipped car.
  • This was also the first 1-2 finish for KERS-equipped cars, with Raikkonen in second.
• Final race for Nelson Piquet, Jr.

Standings after race

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