F1 News - Jenson Button shows he is the best driver at Grand Prix in Hungary
Last updated 7/31/2011 4:05:54 PM
F1 News - Jenson Button shows he is the best driver at Grand Prix in Hungary
Jenson Button celebrated his 200th drive in F1 by showing once again that he is the master in bad conditions.
His calm, assured driving on the slippery Hungaroring brought him his second victory of the season on the track where he won his first.
There seems little doubt that if everyone started on an even footing Button would emerge as the best driver in the world as showers forced the teams into unwanted and sometimes unsuccessful tyre changes.
The lead swapped hands several times before McLaren's Button won a thrilling Hungarian Grand Prix that was decided on tyre strategy as the race was affected by intermittent wet weather.
Button fitted prime tyres at his third stop before the rain fell and he passed team-mate Lewis Hamilton for the lead.
It was Hamilton's race to lose after charging past the season's leader Sebastian Vettel early on only to have to pit six times, including a drive-through penalty, to finally finish fourth.
But even after his enforced drive through – for spinning in front of fellow Brit Paul Di Resta – Hamilton still managed to charge past Mark Webber's Red Bull to finish fourth.
Red Bull's championship leader was fortunate to finish second in the circumstances with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso third.
Remarkably, the 31-year-old Englishman is the only man to win an F1 race at the track in wet conditions - the only two races to have been hit by rain since the inaugural race in 1986.
Vettel recovered from some early mistakes to take second on a three-stop strategy and he now leads the championship by 83 points from team-mate Webber.
Hamilton goes into the summer break third in the championship, 88 points behind Vettel, with Alonso one point back in fourth and Button, despite his win, remaining fifth, 100 points adrift.
Button had run behind Hamilton, who had passed Vettel for the lead, in the second phase of the race after jumping Vettel at the first round of stops.
But when Hamilton opted for the soft tyres at his third stop, Button followed the example set by Webber and chose the prime tyres.
That decision was crucial when the rain fell just over 20 laps later and the two McLaren drivers swapped the lead several times before Hamilton dived back to the pits for intermediate tyres and Button sailed off into the distance.
Di Resta continues to improve and finished a more than creditable seventh.
Earlier in the day it was reported that Button had been seriously injured in a car crash but the hoax couldn't have been further from the truth as the Brit drove like silk in the difficult conditions to pick of his rivals.