Hungary sees Webber through to the top

Mark Webber couldn't have asked for anything better. As the safety car intervened in the 15th lap gobbling up the lead Sebastian Vettel had sweated out right from the start. The German took lead from his pole position, with Alonso's Ferrari catching up fast to push Webber to no.3. Vettel had a good 11 seconds in lead time, when the safety car was deployed. As the debris cleared away, most of the teams pitted, with only Webber being a frontrunner not to pit. As Vettel joined the race at 2nd place, Webber chose to stay out as long as the car could on the super soft Bridgestone tyres.

Furthermore, victory was Webber's on paper, when his German team mate was given a drive-through penalty for falling more than 10 car lengths behind him, and not letting Alonso through while behind the safety car. The German blamed it on radio snags and just got caught out. This move, brought about a total change to the race, as Webber hung in there to build a lead over 19 seconds over the 2nd placed Alonso. Webber did away with lead times lap by lap and finally when the Australian hit the pits in the 43rd lap, he had ahead of him 23.7 seconds and hence, came out in the lead from the pits as well. With the replaced fresh medium-compound Bridgestones , he worked out the 23 second lead again further frustrating the Spaniard Alonso, and keeping an even more fretting Vettel at bay.

Mclaren had a disastrous day to say the least. Hamilton's car rolled to a shocking halt on the 24th lap. With Webber winning, and Hamilton losing out on precious championship points, the Australian has taken the baton from Hamilton to become the new season leader. He heads Hamilton 161 to 157. Though things have tightened up much further now, the Australian would be all smiles currently having secured a 4th win this season. German former champion Michael Schumacher's sober season continued as the German finished a tame 11th. With the summer season break on now, and the next race scheduled not less than 3 weeks away, it would provide a great opportunity for teams to rework their strategy and fight it till the end of the season.