Lewis Hamilton extended his championships lead to 24 points with a victory, even as Sebastian Vettel survived a collision with Valtteri Bottas to finish second at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Vettel slipped from first to third after slow pit stops, giving Hamilton the road, who after starting from the pole position had fallen behind. The Mercedes driver took control of the race from there to claim his fifth victory of the campaign.
Bottas, however, should be given equal credit for holding to his position, that allowed Hamilton to escape with the victory. The Finnish driver looked certain to finish second until he crashed into Vettel’s vehicle at turn two with five laps remaining which put him behind Kimi Raikkonen at fourth.
The Mercedes driver, who lost part of his front wing in the clash eventually settled for a fifth-place finish after another collision with Daniel Riccardo, who overtook the Finn in the final lap following a second such collision.
Earlier, the teams were given the freedom to choose their own tyres as rain threatened to play spoil-sport for the second successive time. Hamilton went for superofs, while Vettel started with the harder compound.
The Mercedes pair of Hamilton and Bottas, who had achieved the first two pole position in the final qualifiers on Saturday initially kept the lead intact before Vettel looking for some space to breakthrough, finally went ahead after Hamilton took pit following the first 25 laps.
The German raced ahead to a handsome advantage but lost it all, when his tyres failed to hold on forcing him to take pits. Issues with changing the left-tyre of his car also played into Hamilton’s hands, who assumed total control and not for a second looked uncomfortable, eventually sealing the victory.