McLaren
McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen celebrated a shock maiden win at the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday after Ferrari’s Felipe Massa suffered an engine failure while leading with three laps remaining.
Heikki Kovalainen became the 100th winner in Formula One history with the first victory of his career to cap a surprising Hungarian Grand Prix.
The triumph was totally unexpected as Felipe Massa was on course to comfortably take the chequered flag, only for the engine in his Ferrari to blow just three laps from the finish.
When Kovalainen crossed the line, team boss Ron Dennis told him over the radio:
“Welcome to the world of winning - the first of many. Well done.”
A thrilled Kovalainen said: “I’m very happy. There have been various incidents this season that have happened when I’ve been in a position to fight for a victory.”
He added: “At the end I tried to put pressure on Massa and hoped something would happen, and it worked out that way.
“The team have kept pushing and I’m very glad to get this first win.
“It’s fantastic, a great moment, something I’ve been targeting for many years. Hopefully this is the first of many.”
Felipe Massa made an electric getaway from third position on the grid passing Kovalainen on the run to turn one and then braking late, passed Lewis Hamilton for the lead around the outside of turn one. It was a tremendous aggressive move and showing that his record breaking pace in the second round of qualifying yesterday was no fluke, the Brazilian was able to pull out a small advantage from Hamilton, a gap of four to five seconds he retained though the first round of pits stops.
Hamilton did not look to have an answer to Massa’s pace but the championship leader’s race took a further nose-dive as the front-left tyre failed on lap 42. Hamilton made his way slowly back to the pits and took the soft tyre for the remainder of the race.
Out front, Massa controlled the pace and allowed Kovalainen to slowly close the gap. It all looked to be perfectly under control until two laps from home when the Ferrari V8 failed in dramatic fashion handing the race win to Kovalainen and leaving Massa distraught.
The result left Hamilton five points ahead of Raikkonen in the drivers championship with Massa now eight points behind.
“I think I did the best of the worst if you like, in the end,” said a relieved Hamilton.
“I had no idea about the puncture and the team did a great job to help me back into that race - and last year I think I lost the championship because of punctures.
“But congratulations to Heikki who drove a great race and he deserves his win. We have taken points from our rivals today and made the best of things. It could have been a whole lot worse.”
Hamilton mounted a solid revival to score points in the closing stages and he gained his reward after battling through to fifth after Massa’s massive misfortune.
