2008 HUNGARIAN GRAND PRIX

Background

The 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix was the 11th of the 18th rounds of the 2008 Formula One World Championship and occurred at the 4.381 km (2.722 mi) Hungaroring circuit, in Mogyoród , Hungary, on 3 August 2008. The Grand Prix was contested by 20 drivers in ten teams of two. The teams, also known as " constructors ", were Ferrari , McLaren - Mercedes , Renault , Honda , Force India -Ferrari, BMW Sauber , Toyota , Red Bull -Renault, Williams -Toyota and Toro Rosso -Ferrari. Bef... Following the German Grand Prix on July 20, the teams conducted testing sessions at the Jerez circuit from July 22–25. Each team was limited to 30,000 km (19,000 mi) of testing during the 2008 calendar year, a reduction compared with previous seasons. Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) set the fastest time of the first and second days, while Mark Webber (Red Bull) topped the third day's running, and Heikki Kovalainen was fastest on the final day of testing. Several teams tested using Brid...

Practice

Several teams made technical changes to their cars for the Grand Prix. Ferrari altered the F2008 chassis's cooling system and bodywork following high brake wear and engine water temperatures at the German Grand Prix. McLaren and Force India introduced revised aerodynamic packages for their MP4-23 and VJM01 chassis, aimed at increasing the amount of downforce , and therefore grip, produced by the bodywork. Force India also brought its seamless-shift gearbox to the event. Ferrari, Honda and... The sport's sole tyre supplier, Bridgestone, provided two specifications of grooved dry tyres for the race, designated Soft (also referred to as the "prime" tyre) and Super Soft (also referred to as the "option" tyre). The Super Soft compound was distinguished by a white stripe in one of the tyre's grooves. As was the case for all of the 2008 Grands Prix, the rules stipulated that all cars should use both types of tyre during the course of the race, and each driver was limited to seven sets of d...

Qualifying

"The team has done a fantastic job of continually improving the car over the past few weeks, so I'm really proud of what we've achieved today. It's great to have locked out the front row with Heikki—we've been threatening to do it for a number of races, so to achieve it at a track where it's tricky to pass is really satisfying. There's a great harmony within the team at the moment and we really deserved this. I couldn't ask to be in a better position, we've both got good strategies for tomorrow ... Hamilton set the fastest time in the first and final parts of the session, which clinched him pole position with a lap of 1:20.899. Although he was pleased with the handling of his McLaren—he said that he had never been more comfortable in the car—he believed that he could have recorded a faster lap, as he made a slight mistake going into Turn Five. Hamilton was joined on the front row by his teammate Kovalainen, who recorded a lap time 0.241 seconds slower and was fuelled for an ad...

Race

Massa and Hamilton immediately began to pull clear of Kovalainen. On lap 3, Button overtook his teammate Barrichello for 13th position, but both Honda drivers were stuck behind Heidfeld, who was carrying a heavier fuel load than them. As the race progressed, Massa began to open a small lead over Hamilton, who put his McLaren into a "fuel-saving mode", attempting to jump ahead of Massa later in the race by making a pit stop after the Ferrari driver. In addition, the high trac... Massa, Kubica and Webber were the first three drivers to make pit stops by coming in on lap 18. The McLaren mechanics timed Massa's stop to estimate the amount of fuel he received, and when Hamilton made his own first stop on the next lap, they fuelled him to run for three laps longer than the Ferrari in the second stint of the race. Kovalainen took over the lead of the race for two laps before his pit stop on lap 21 returned it to Massa. Piquet was the last of the leading run... At the front of the field, Massa continued to pull away gradually from Hamilton; the gap between the two had risen to 5 seconds by the end of lap 40. On the following lap, Hamilton's front-left tyre deflated approaching Turn Two; the resultant slow lap back to the pit lane and stop for a replacement tyre dropped him to tenth place. Massa now had a 23-second lead over Kovalainen and slowed his pace accordingly, adjusting the performance of the engine to place it under less mechanical stres... At the conclusion of lap 59, with the scheduled pit stops completed, the running order was Massa leading from Kovalainen, Glock, Räikkönen, Alonso, Hamilton, Piquet, Trulli, Kubica, Webber, Heidfeld, Coulthard, Button, Nakajima, Rosberg, Fisichella, Sutil, Barrichello and Bourdais. Running in clean air without a car immediately in front of him for the first time, Räikkönen set the fastest lap of the race at 1:21.195, on lap 61, as he closed the nine-second gap to Glock at a rate of one sec... "There have been various incidents this year and we have been in the position after Saturday quite a few times to fight for the victory, but always something has gone wrong and it hasn't functioned perfectly. Today obviously I knew Massa and Lewis were both very fast at the beginning of the race but halfway through the race I felt it was starting to work for me a little bit better and then at the end I just tried to put pressure on Massa and hoped something would happen and obviously it looked l... Although Kovalainen was delighted with his first Formula One victory, he attributed much of the credit for his win to luck. After the race he said, "I feel a bit sorry for Felipe and Lewis. They both drove great races, but I know how it feels when things go wrong—I've had a few similar moments this year. I tried to put pressure on Felipe, especially during the last stint. I felt something might happen if I did that, you never know, but I still found it hard to believe when I saw his Ferrari on f... The podium finishers were overshadowed in the media by coverage of the ill fortune of both the weekend's pace-setters, Hamilton and Massa. Massa in particular was praised for his performance. The Ferrari team principal, Stefano Domenicali , said it was, "the best race of his career. It was fantastic the way he managed the race." Journalist Mark Hughes described it as "almost certainly his best race to date", and colleague Simon Arron termed it as "one of the finest afternoon... Bridgestone director of motorsport Hirohide Hamashima said Hamilton's puncture was probably caused by debris, although as a result of the damage the tyre had sustained, the precise nature of the failure was impossible to determine. He also stated that Hamilton's tyre was more vulnerable to debris damage because he had flat-spotted it earlier in the race. Massa said he had no prior indication of his engine failure. The problem was later traced to a connecting rod failure caused by a...