The 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix, officially the Formula 1 Pirelli Magyar Nagydíj 2014, was held on 27 July 2014 at the Hungaroring in Mogyoród, Hungary. It was the 11th round of the 2014 Formula One season, the 30th running of the Hungarian Grand Prix, and the 29th time the event counted towards the World Championship.
| Season | 2014 F1 World Championship | ||
| Date | 27 July 2014 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Official name | Formula 1 Pirelli Magyar Nagydíj 2014 | ||
| Location | Hungaroring, Mogyoród, Hungary | ||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||
| Course length | 4.381 km (2.722 miles) | ||
| Distance | 70 laps, 306.630 km (190.531 miles) | ||
| Weather | Overcast. Wet track at start, then drying. Scattered thunderstorms during the day, temperatures reaching a maximum of 26 degrees. | ||
| Attendance | 169,000 (Weekend) 67,000 (Race Day) | ||
After 70 dramatic laps, Daniel Ricciardo claimed victory for Red Bull Racing, charging to the win from fourth on the grid. Fernando Alonso finished second for Ferrari, while Lewis Hamilton completed the podium in third for Mercedes. In hindsight, the result carried extra significance: it proved to be Alonso’s final podium finish until the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix.
This was only the third wet Hungarian Grand Prix in World Championship history, following the rain-affected editions of 2006 and 2011. Thunderstorms and heavy rain swept across the circuit around lunchtime, leaving the field to begin on intermediate tyres before conditions gradually improved and the track dried later in the afternoon.
Background
The race featured 11 teams, each entering two cars. Those constructors were Red Bull Racing, Mercedes-Benz, Ferrari, Lotus, McLaren, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Marussia, and Caterham.
Tyre supplier Pirelli brought four compounds to Hungary: the medium tyre as the prime, the soft as the option, and the usual wet-weather choices of intermediate and full wet tyres. The drag reduction system was available in two zones: one on the start-finish straight between the final corner and Turn 1, and another on the run from Turn 1 to Turn 2.
Heading into the weekend, Nico Rosberg led the Drivers’ Championship on 190 points, with Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton second on 176. Ricciardo sat third on 106 points, followed by Alonso on 97, while Valtteri Bottas rounded out the top five on 91.
Mercedes was also firmly in command of the Constructors’ Championship with 366 points. Red Bull were second on 188, Williams third on 121, Ferrari fourth with 116, and Force India fifth on 98. It had been a season largely defined by Mercedes dominance: the team had won nine of the first ten races, with the only exception being Ricciardo’s breakthrough victory in Canada. Behind those wins, Kevin Magnussen and Bottas had each taken a second-place finish, while Sebastian Vettel, Alonso, Jenson Button, and Sergio Pérez had all recorded third-place podiums.
A number of teams arrived with updates. Marussia changed one of Max Chilton’s MR03 chassis after balance and electrical problems encountered in Austria. Williams introduced a small additional wing section intended to increase downforce and grip, while Lotus brought revised front wing endplates designed to manage airflow more effectively.
Practice
Three practice sessions took place before qualifying: two 90-minute sessions on Friday, followed by a final one-hour session on Saturday morning.
Hamilton set the pace in first practice, finishing ahead of Rosberg and Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen. Chilton’s session, however, was badly compromised when an oil leak triggered a fire on his Marussia, limiting him to just five timed laps and leaving him 21st overall.
Hamilton went quickest again in second practice, this time ahead of Rosberg, Vettel, and Alonso, despite wrestling with tyre grip throughout the session. He then completed a clean sweep in final practice on Saturday morning, once more topping the timesheets ahead of Rosberg, Ricciardo, and Vettel.
2014 Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying
Qualifying that afternoon followed the standard three-part knockout format. Q1 lasted 18 minutes and eliminated the slowest cars from 17th downwards, with the 107% rule applying. Q2 ran for 15 minutes and removed those in positions 11 to 16. Q3 then decided the top ten and pole position.
Rosberg secured his sixth pole of the season and his first at the Hungaroring with a lap of 1:22.715. Vettel joined him on the front row. Hamilton’s qualifying, by contrast, ended in disaster: his Mercedes caught fire before he could set a time, forcing him to start from the back row.
2014 Hungarian Grand Prix Race Results
At the getaway, Rosberg held the lead into Turn 1, but there was immediate action behind him. Bottas swept around the outside of Vettel at the first corner to take second, and Alonso also got ahead of Vettel shortly after, before Vettel reclaimed the place later in the lap. Hamilton, who had started from the pit lane and therefore had not taken part in the formation lap, was in a particularly awkward position. With his brakes still cold, he spun at Turn 2 on the opening lap and lightly brushed the barriers with the front-left corner of the car. The damage was minor, and he continued, but he was now down in 22nd and last.
By lap 9, Rosberg had built a healthy lead, while Hamilton had already fought back to 13th. Then the race changed completely. Marcus Ericsson crashed, bringing out the safety car. The timing of it was cruel for the leaders: Rosberg, Bottas, Vettel, and Alonso had already passed pit entry and were forced to complete an entire lap behind the safety car before they could stop. Everyone else was able to dive in immediately.
Most of the field switched to dry tyres, but the two McLarens took another set of intermediates, gambling that the track would remain wet enough for longer. When the order settled after the stops, the complexion of the race had been transformed. Rosberg had dropped from first to fourth, Bottas had fallen all the way from second to 11th, while Ricciardo was the man who emerged in front. Hamilton, despite the chaos, remained 13th.
The safety car period was extended even further when Romain Grosjean crashed under caution, delaying the restart until lap 14. When racing resumed, Jenson Button wasted no time and immediately passed Ricciardo for the lead. Rosberg, meanwhile, was overtaken by Jean-Éric Vergne, dropping him to fifth, while Hamilton produced one of the race’s most aggressive bursts by passing four cars in a single lap to climb to ninth.
But Button’s time at the front did not last. After only two laps on his second set of intermediates, McLaren realised the circuit was drying too quickly and pitted him for slicks on lap 16. The earlier decision to stay on intermediates had backfired badly, and Button dropped down to 16th.
On lap 17, Nico Hülkenberg retired after making contact with Force India teammate Sergio Pérez, though Pérez escaped significant damage. By then, Hamilton had climbed to seventh and was tucked in behind Vettel, only a second away from Rosberg, who was still bottled up behind Vergne. Alonso, meanwhile, was thriving in the changing conditions and had surged into third by lap 18.
Another major twist came on lap 23, when Pérez spun at the final corner and crashed into the pit wall, handing Force India a rare double retirement. Out came the safety car once again. This time Ricciardo and Felipe Massa, running first and second, chose to pit. They rejoined sixth and seventh, behind Alonso, Vergne, Rosberg, Vettel, and Hamilton, all of whom stayed out.
When the race restarted on lap 27, Alonso took control beautifully, pulling out a gap while a fierce queue developed behind him. Vergne led the train in second, stubbornly keeping Rosberg at bay, with Vettel and Hamilton stacked up directly behind. On lap 33, Rosberg blinked first and pitted for soft tyres, rejoining in 13th. Moments later, Vettel spun at the final corner — exactly where Pérez had crashed earlier — but somehow avoided the wall. It was a heart-in-mouth moment, and it allowed Hamilton to close rapidly on Vergne. One lap later, Hamilton made a superb move around the outside at Turn 4 to get past the Toro Rosso.
The strategic battle intensified from there. Alonso stopped for softs on lap 39, with Hamilton coming in a lap later for mediums. They rejoined in fourth and fifth, respectively, and Ricciardo inherited the lead once more. Rosberg had been charging back through the order, but the timing of the stops left him down in ninth, having effectively been undercut by Hamilton.
By lap 47, Rosberg had recovered enough ground to sit right behind his teammate, with no cars between them. Mercedes then issued the instruction for Hamilton to let Rosberg through, since Rosberg was on the softer tyre and on a different strategy, still needing one more stop. Hamilton refused. Over team radio, he delivered one of the defining lines of the season: “I’m not slowing down for Nico. If he gets close enough to overtake, he can overtake me.”
From Hamilton’s perspective, the logic was simple: Rosberg was his title rival, and there was little sense in giving away time and track position if Rosberg was not actually close enough to pass. The tension inside Mercedes was now out in the open.
Ricciardo made his final stop for soft tyres on lap 54, with Rosberg following on lap 56, also taking softs. They rejoined fourth and seventh, respectively. As the final phase unfolded, the race tightened dramatically. By lap 62, Alonso, Hamilton, and Ricciardo were running nose-to-tail as first, second, and third. Hamilton was only 0.4 seconds behind Alonso, and Ricciardo was another 0.4 seconds behind Hamilton.
Further back, Rosberg was in fourth, over 20 seconds adrift of Ricciardo, but his fresher soft tyres were delivering a staggering pace advantage. He was taking chunks of time out of the leaders — as much as three seconds a lap — while setting the fastest lap of the race.
On lap 63, Alonso cut the chicane but escaped without penalty and kept the lead. The decisive moment came four laps later when Ricciardo, full of confidence and grip, passed Hamilton around the outside of Turn 2 on lap 67. Then, on the next lap, he made the winning move, sweeping past Alonso into Turn 1 to snatch the lead with just two laps remaining.
Alonso did everything he could to hold off Hamilton, but both were deep into the life of their tyres and had dropped well beyond peak performance. Rosberg arrived on the final lap, closing rapidly and piling on one last burst of pressure. He attacked Hamilton around the outside of Turn 2, but Hamilton defended robustly and kept third place.
Ricciardo crossed the line to take his second victory of the season, finishing 5.2 seconds clear. Alonso claimed a brilliantly managed second place for Ferrari, while Hamilton completed an outstanding recovery from the pit lane to finish third, just ahead of Rosberg in fourth. Massa and Räikkönen were fifth and sixth, while Vettel and Bottas — who had started second and third — could manage only seventh and eighth. Ferrari’s result also allowed the team to move ahead of Williams for third in the Constructors’ Championship.
Post-race
The top three finishers appeared on the podium to collect their trophies before facing the media in the post-race press conference.
Despite the drama, the championship tables changed only slightly. Hamilton’s third place trimmed Rosberg’s lead in the Drivers’ Championship to 11 points, while the Constructors’ standings also saw only minimal movement.
Much of the post-race focus centred on Mercedes and the team orders dispute. Niki Lauda, the team’s non-executive chairman, openly backed Hamilton’s refusal to move aside, saying Mercedes had effectively panicked in making the call.
Mercedes also revealed technical troubles for both drivers during the race. Rosberg suffered from overheating rear brakes behind the first safety car, while Hamilton encountered a similar problem later on. Hamilton’s car also developed a fuel pressure issue, which further complicated his race. After the Grand Prix, Mercedes discovered that the fuel pressure problem had caused a significant loss of engine power shortly after Hamilton’s second stop on lap 40. The team estimated it cost him around half a second per lap for the remainder of the race — enough to suggest that, on a cleaner day, victory may genuinely have been within reach.
| Pos. | No. | Driver | Team | Laps | Time / Retired | Pts. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull Racing Renault | 70 | 01:53:05 | 25 |
| 2 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Ferrari | 70 | +5.225s | 18 |
| 3 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 70 | +5.857s | 15 |
| 4 | 6 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 70 | +6.361s | 12 |
| 5 | 19 | Felipe Massa | Williams Mercedes | 70 | +29.841s | 10 |
| 6 | 7 | Kimi Räikkönen | Ferrari | 70 | +31.491s | 8 |
| 7 | 1 | Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull Racing Renault | 70 | +40.964s | 6 |
| 8 | 77 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams Mercedes | 70 | +41.344s | 4 |
| 9 | 25 | Jean-Eric Vergne | STR Renault | 70 | +58.527s | 2 |
| 10 | 22 | Jenson Button | McLaren Mercedes | 70 | +67.280s | 1 |
| 11 | 99 | Adrian Sutil | Sauber Ferrari | 70 | +68.169s | 0 |
| 12 | 20 | Kevin Magnussen | McLaren Mercedes | 70 | +78.465s | 0 |
| 13 | 13 | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus Renault | 70 | +84.024s | 0 |
| 14 | 26 | Daniil Kvyat | STR Renault | 69 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 15 | 17 | Jules Bianchi | Marussia Ferrari | 69 | +1 lap | 0 |
| 16 | 4 | Max Chilton | Marussia Ferrari | 69 | +1 lap | 0 |
| NC | 21 | Esteban Gutierrez | Sauber Ferrari | 32 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 10 | Kamui Kobayashi | Caterham Renault | 24 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 11 | Sergio Perez | Force India Mercedes | 22 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India Mercedes | 14 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 8 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus Renault | 10 | DNF | 0 |
| NC | 9 | Marcus Ericsson | Caterham Renault | 7 | DNF | 0 |
2014 Post-Race F1 Championship Standings
Drivers
| Pos. | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nico Rosberg | 202 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | 191 |
| 3 | Daniel Ricciardo | 131 |
| 4 | Fernando Alonso | 115 |
| 5 | Valtteri Bottas | 95 |
Teams
| Pos. | Constructor | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mercedes | 393 |
| 2 | Red Bull Racing | 219 |
| 3 | Ferrari | 142 |
| 4 | Williams | 135 |
| 5 | Force India | 98 |
Seen in:
