Report cards of the Hungarian Grand Prix

Mark Webber's peremptory success at the Hungaroring. The Australian takes advantage of a naivety from his teammate Vettel and takes the lead in the world championship again. Alonso was a good second, while Hamilton retired and had to give up the scepter of world championship leader. Enjoy the reading!

Jenson Button: 6nd – You earn a pass, very stretched, only because you get a few points anyway. And, given how he was doing after practice -11th- and especially after the first corner -15th- he wasn't at all a given. The usual tactical wisdom - we struggle to remember an accident caused by him - at the service of a car that is anything but exciting. Of course, if you don't wake up in qualifying your opponents will fly away. But if the match gets a little chaotic, he's there. Wise.

Lewis Hamilton: 8 – The exact antithesis of his teammate. Jenson is so wise and calculating, so ferocious and aggressive he is. With cold tires it's the best, no fuss. He enters the wrong tunnel at the start and is overtaken by Petrov, but within a few kilometers he is immediately in front of him again. Moving on outside. He immediately realizes that there is very little he can do against Ferrari and Red Bull - it was like that in Monte Carlo, a similar track in some ways, too - and he just tries to get the car to the finish line. He doesn't succeed: the gearbox drops him on the 24th lap, through no fault of his own. He loses his lead in the world championship but proves that he is there more than ever. Killer. Once again.

Michael Schumacher: 4 – There are those who say he had brake problems (but Nico Rosberg's response to a specific question is unequivocal: «Michael says he has brake problems» «Oh yes? Dunno…»). There are those who claim that the front tires cause him difficulty. Who says that he is under the effect of a spell generated by a Brazilian sorceress (apparently a friend of an aunt of Rubens Barrichello). We don't know. But nothing justifies what he did in the final stages of the race. The maneuver with which he tries to send the Brazilian himself to the eternal father - incidentally very religious, but he has nothing to do with it - is arresting. Point. This alone is worth the vote. If we also evaluate the race... well, better not to, we could go even lower. Criminal.

Nico Rosberg: sv – There are those who lose their bearings, like his teammate, those who lose their bearings, like him. He happens, on certain slightly unlucky Sundays in August. It's true that he wasn't having a memorable race - but not a bad one either, all things considered -, it's true that whoever is the cause of his pain - in this case the crew in the pits - is crying for himself, it's true that maybe there's a little 'of too much relaxation, the result of a disappointing year.... the fact is that for a few races now Mercedes hasn't had a good run. On his retirement he says: «There was a bit of a mess in the pits, I retired. but I still wasn't doing well." How can you blame him? How to give it a grade? Disarming.

Sebastian Vettel: 7st - A chicken. A chicken if there ever was one. He throws away a virtually certain victory with an unfortunate slowdown behind the safety car. Both wicked and, alas, unmotivated. If he did it on purpose he would deserve a smackdown. If, as he claims, it was just the result of distraction, so much the worse. He loses both first and second position, and the succession of fast laps in the final phase of the race only worsens his position. No, you don't become world champions like that. Not even if you have an unquestionable speed talent and if - above all - you have the best car of the lot. This year he threw away a lot of points, let's hope he doesn't have to regret them. Snooty.

Mark Webber: 9,5 – Solid, stainless, tenacious, cynical. As only an Australian can be. The more time passes the more he reminds us of the good -maybe- old -definitely- Alan Jones. The one who won the world championship in 1980 with Williams, which all things considered few remember. Few frills and lots of substance. At 34 years old he has reached full competitive maturity. And the Hungarian weekend is proof of this. He suffers in qualifying, he suffers from Vettel in the race but when the track is free he goes wild and - with soft tires - invents an interminable and above all very fast, clean and constant stint. Impeccable. He wins the victory, the championship lead and earns points within the team. And he's nice too. The writer interviewed him way back (???) in 2006, when he was at Williams, and he remembers him as kind, nice and not inclined to push back. Who knows, maybe even this counts for something at the end of the game. Caterpillar.

Felipe Massa: 7,5 – Finishes in fourth place. Considering that last year he was about to die here, this is perhaps too much. He starts well, loses position to Hamilton at the pit stop following the entry of the safety car - he follows Alonso... - but recovers it with the Englishman's retirement. He can do little against the Red Bulls and against his teammate. For the former ok, for the latter a little less, but that's it. He says he doesn't resign himself to the role of second guide, but he has to prove it with facts. But it is also true that when it happens, as in Germany, he is brought back into the ranks by the team. Who, in turn, says he does not consider him a second guide. But how? I don't know. A puzzle. In the meantime he is enjoying a pre-holiday fourth place which isn't bad at all. Serene.

Fernando Alonso: 9th – He finds himself on the second step of the podium and, probably, not even he knows why. At least not completely. He gets off to an excellent start, slipping in between the Red Bulls. He still crosses the finish line between Mateschitz's two cars, but with reversed positions. This already says a lot about the non-linear progress of the race. He is good at getting Webber at the start, a little less so - but we must always take into account the difference in speed between the cars - at letting Webber escape after the safety car - remember that the Australian was already on very old tires - but then he masterful in resisting Vettel's return. He is right when he says that consistency will be the key to this world championship. Of the contenders for the title, he is the only one who actually has the stripes of team leader. And that's not to say it can't be the deciding factor. Leaned.

Rubens Barrichello: 7 – More than the tenth place finish, more than the little point collected, more than the inferior performance to that of his teammate, more than the entry of the safety car at the least suitable moment for him, he will remember this Grand Prix for a long time for the closing criminal suffered by Michael Schumacher. A duel in true "The War of the Grandparents" style, given their respective identity cards. A fight where, incidentally, he demonstrates that he has attributes equal to those of his former team leader at Ferrari, keeping his foot down - despite the space available being measured in centimeters - and still completing the overtaking. He deserves a 10 just for not putting his hands on the German immediately after the end of the race. He picks up a small dot, perhaps sweating a little too much but precisely for this reason precious. Gentleman.

Nico Hulkenberg: 8 – And let's go, finally. On a slow, tortuous and grumpy track, the German gave himself a fantastic performance, climbing up to sixth place overall. Of course, the safety car gives him a big hand, but in life you also need luck and above all you need skill to know how to exploit it. He doesn't make mistakes, he's regular, and above all - thanks also to an excellent qualification - he is in the best position to benefit from neutralization. The incredible Hulkenberg, therefore. He brings home points, confidence, pats on the back. Shrewd.

Robert Kubica: sv – His race ends with the first - and only - pit stop, the innocent victim of the absurd collision with Adrian Sutil in the pits. He stuff from the 70s, romantic, exhilarating, heroic but in some ways also amateurish and dangerous. He comments on the clash with British aplomb ("I think the timing of the exit was a bit wrong") which also makes us forget that he had been beaten by Petrov in qualifying. He will know how to make up for it in Spa. Stuck (in the pits).

Vitaly Petrov: 9 – Masterful as only a Russian on a day of grace can be. He overtakes Kubica in qualifying, even overtakes Hamilton at the start - only to suffer the Englishman's forceful comeback - but brings home a very spirited and concrete performance which earns him an excellent fifth place finish. He is known as a rain wizard, but this time he is also deadly in the dry, without tricks and without deception. Really good. If he finds the key to the problem even on fast tracks - and Spa in this sense will be a very tough testing ground - he will be able to save his place and get some great satisfaction. Ùngaro.

Adrian Sutil: sv – Exactly the same thing applies to Kubica. The innocent victim of a grotesque collision, she says goodbye to the company before she can prove anything, for better or for worse. Luckily no one got hurt, it could have ended worse. Hallucinated.

Vitantonio Liuzzi: 5 – Dull weekend for Tonio, who sensationally fails in qualifying - sixteenth - and in the race can only settle for an unflattering thirteenth place, far from the points zone. At the start he loses a piece of the wing and is forced to stop prematurely to replace it. We can't pass at the Hungaroring, if we add this too... he gets stuck behind the Toro Rossos and finishes the race in the same position. A little bit, all things considered. He says the car had good pace in the race. It's an aggravating circumstance, not a justification. He postponed.

Sebastien Buemi: 5,5 – At the start he battles with Michael Schumacher and - it's not clear how - he even ends up behind Trulli. Then he passes him and finds himself behind the German again. He is unable to attack him - and given what happened to Barrichello, all in all that's fine - and lacks the possibility of passing him when exiting the pits because he is too far away. He finishes the race in twelfth place in full tire crisis. Nothing exorbitant, then. With a little more grit, though, he could perhaps get closer to the points. Lazy.

Jaime Alguersuari: sv – Ready-go and the engine immediately says enough. White smoke, oil on the track, retirement. In Budapest he celebrated the first anniversary of his F1 debut. I smoke a lot, but no candles. He has definitely had better birthdays. Smoked.

Jarno Trulli: 6 – Gets a great start and jumps ahead of three cars. Two of them overtook him again, but not Timo Glock's Virgin, which he managed to keep up until the finish line. Lotus confirms itself as the best of the new teams and both cars manage to cross the finish line. It's just a shame that once again Jarno falls behind his teammate. But all in all that's fine, also because the two are practically competing in parallel. The real news is that he didn't have any kind of technical problem throughout the weekend. Is this a sign? Maybe. Superstitious.

Heikki Kovalainen: 6,5 – Beats Trulli in qualifying and in the race. It's hard to ask him for more. Of course he finished three laps behind the leaders, but he was still the first driver to cross the finish line among those driving a car from the new teams. He doesn't make mistakes, he's good at the start, diligent in dubbing and pleasant in interviews. He may not be a phenomenon, but he certainly does. So it deserves sufficiency. It remains a mystery how he could have suffered so at McLaren. Bah. Maybe he only gets so excited in difficulties. Masochist.

Sakon Yamamoto: 5 – He defended himself reasonably well in qualifying, in the race he closed the gap by four laps and - above all - one lap behind his teammate. His surname is Senna but his name is Bruno, not Ayrton. Even with all the mitigating factors involved, achieving a passing grade is extremely difficult. The final nineteenth place - last of the classified - adds little to what has been said so far. Who knows if we'll see him again behind the wheel of an F1. And, above all, who knows who he is in whose place. Recomparecido (the opposite of desaparecido…).

Bruno Senna: 6 – He suffers in practice but is very tough in the race, when he manages to keep Di Grassi's Virgin behind until the final seventeenth place. It's always hard to judge the performance of those who drive cars like the HRT, which are only distant relatives of competitive single-seaters. This time we decide that he deserves a passing grade and that he probably also deserves to keep his place until the end of the season. But as we know, in certain teams the decision-making logic is less linked to the stopwatch and more to the wallet. So… Suspended.

Pedro De La Rosa: 8 – He expected a difficult weekend and instead found himself rejoicing for a seventh place as unexpected as Benvenuto. He achieved his true masterpiece in qualifying, climbing up to ninth position. Then he gets a good start, is called back to the pits at the right time and all he has to do is maintain his position without making any mistakes. Easier said than done, however. He does it well and even has time - in his words - to make a mental note of some changes to suggest to improve the behavior of the car. It's unlikely to be true, but who knows. Engineer(?).

Kamui Kobayashi: 8,5 – Are we going too far? We get out of balance. He is the hero of the Hungarian GP. Starting eighteenth and finishing ninth is a titanic undertaking in modern F1. Doing it at the Hungaroring is practically impossible. But he does it. As? With a good start, with a couple of successful overtakings, with a correct entry into the pits when the safety car entered and with a good duel - won - with Michael Schumacher, who shores up his position from Barrichello's attacks. Really tough, the Toyota school Jap. But we don't find out today. If he knows how to smooth out some excesses, he can truly become great. Magical.

Timo Glock: 6 – At the start he chooses the wrong hole and finds himself bottled up behind his teammate. This means that with the entry of the safety car he has to follow the Brazilian and waste time in the pits. He ends up behind the two Lotuses and says that due to the blue flags he is unable to attack them. In reality, things aren't exactly like that and we doubt that he would have made it anyway, but that's how it is. He finishes sixteenth. It's a shame, because the Lotus had beaten them in qualifying. But the calculations are made in the end, alas. Sufficiency, however, even if stretched, is there. Liar.

Lucas Di Grassi: 6 - Sin. It's a shame because the start had been excellent, because he easily kept pace with the Lotus and because he was also controlling his teammate well. But then in the pits they screw up, they fit a tire incorrectly and he has to come in for an additional stop. This practically destroys the race for him. In any case, he left his mark on the race, albeit small, by setting the best lap of the new teams' drivers. Little consolation if not downright regret. The Brazilian is growing well, driving cleanly and rarely making mistakes. Force!

Manuel Codignoni
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