The 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix is in the books and now you can wake up. It was another Mercedes 1-2 snoozefest as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg paraded their pair of Mercedes around the track 70 times while the pair of Red Bulls and Ferraris fought it out for the final third place podium position scraps, eventually claimed by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo.
There was literally no excitement in this race for the first 40 laps. None. Nada. Zilch. Hamilton led, Rosberg was second, the Red Bulls and Ferraris were third through sixth. Then tire choices began to enter into play and that had the potential for messing the order up but, alas, it did not. So AutoSportsNation is forced to award points again based on the order of the boring finish – Hamilton claims top points with Rosberg and Ricciardo behind him. Rosberg still holds the season lead though Hamilton has closed the gap to a mere four points.
With the race being just an endless parade of cars going around the circuit and so little action, we had to wait until a late race unforced error spin by Renault’s Jolyon Palmer to award Palmer the prestigious Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award.
Meanwhile, the Kimi Raikkonen “Leave Me Alone! I Know What I’m Doing!” Award is handed out to Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel who complained about various cars ignoring the Captain Slow blue flags of shame [and eventually Haas’ Esteban Gutierrez was ultimately penalized].
The Lewis Hamilton Doofus Moment Award was relatively easy – going to Force India’s pit for Sergio Perez after they seemingly snoozed off [can’t blame ’em] and forgot there was a race going on and subsequently were late in preparing for Perez’s arrival in his pit stall.
2016 ASN F1 Driver Standings [after Hungarian Grand Prix]
1] Nico Rosberg – 19 points
2] Lewis Hamilton – 15
3] Sebastian Vettel – eight
4] Kimi Raikkonen – five
5] Max Verstappen – four
6] Fernando Alonso/Sergio Perez – three
8] Jenson Button/Carlos Sainz, Jr. – two
10] Valtteri Bottas/Romain Grosjean/Daniil Kvyat/Daniel Ricciardo/Stoffel Vandoorne – one
The Pastor Maldonado Driving School Award [after Hungarian Grand Prix]
1] Kvyat/Rosberg – two points
3] Alonso/Bottas/Hamilton/Hulkenberg/Palmer/Raikkonen/Wehrlein – one
The Kimi Raikkonen “Leave Me Alone! I Know What I’m Doing! Award [after Hungarian Grand Prix]
1] Hamilton/Raikkonen/Vettel – two points
4] Button/Kvyat/Ricciardo/Rosberg/Wehrlein – one point
The Lewis Hamilton Doofus Moment Award [after Hungarian Grand Prix]
1] Bernie Ecclestone/Hamilton – three points
3] F1 Stewards/Force India pit [Perez]/Renault pit [Palmer]/Red Bull pit [Ricciardo]/Mercedes management – one point