No Sunny Day for Renault

By Catfish
August 6 2006

Torrential rain looked to have eased off as the drivers began their warm up laps and most of them, including both Renaults, opted for intermediate tyres. Only Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello of the potential front-runners began the race on full wets and a potential lottery was in prospect.

The start was just an indication of what was to follow as both Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher made superb getaways making up several places on the first lap. By lap two Fernando had passed his heavily fuelled team mate for 5th place and was gaining rapidly on Michael who had already managed to claw his way up to fourth. They had an engaging battle for a couple of laps before Fernando pulled off a clean pass on lap 4 – thankfully without any further incident to add to their controversy-filled weekend. It was clear by this point that it was Bridgestone's turn to struggle and the choice of full wets wasn't working out. Kimi was building up a big lead at this point whilst Massa was also struggling and span on lap 8 dropping him further down the grid. The next main on-track fight was looming as Fisi began to close on Schumacher too but was possibly too heavily fuelled to find an easy way past. On lap 16 he had a good run down the inside of the Ferrari only for Michael to promptly close the door and they looked to touch wheels. Two laps later Fisi was having none of it and forced his way down the inside with Schumacher losing part of his front wing in his attempt to cut back in. At this point it was looking very promising for Renualt with the drivers running first and third thanks to Raikkonen and Button pitting and suddenly a double podium could even be possible. Famous last words unfortunately as the next TV shot was of Fisi flying sideways into the gravel at some speed and in spite of attempting to continue failed to make it back to the pits and retired. Time will tell whether it was as a result of some damage sustained in the battle with Schumacher or whether it was simply driver error and a waste of an excellent overtaking move similar to Spa last season.

On lap 27 Kimi Raikkonen was the next front runner to depart as he appeared to make an even more surprising error by smashing into the back of 11th placed Tonio Liuzzi whist attempting to lap him and promptly brought out the safety car. Fernando pitted for the first time and was looking very good for a famous victory from 15th place on the grid whilst Michael Schumacher struggled down in 7th. This continued without much further incident until the circuit began to dry out and second placed man Jenson Button began to close down the Spaniard’s lead. On lap 52 Fernando came in to the pits for dry tyres but appeared to be struggling immediately on his exit. Confirmation came swiftly when he span out and hit the barriers on lap 53 - game over for Renault. It looked very much as if a loose wheelnut had flown off his front right just before the corner similar to Nigel Mansell’s disaster at the same circuit nearly 20 years ago. With Schumacher now up to third it wasn't looking too handy for the championship either. However the German was struggling on his intermediates and soon had Pedro De la Rosa filling his mirrors. Eventually he conceded the position after running off the circuit on lap 66 but not without putting up his usual fight. Then on lap 68 he made contact with Nick Heidfeld and the resulting suspension damage proved terminal this time and the lead Ferrari retired with only three laps remaining.

For once we have seen an entertaining race in Hungary and for Jenson Button it proved to be a very lucky 113th and totally deserved victory from 13th place on the grid! We saw strong performances from Pedro De La Rosa and Nick Heidfeld for the other podium places and some excellent overtaking moves all round. For Renualt it’s more a case of a very lucky escape from a potentially damaging situation as Felipe Massa's single point was Ferrari's only gain. But the question has to be will the loss of a possible 18 points here come back to haunt us after the three week break.