Taking a page out of the Mercedes 2016 handbook, Ferrari finished 1-2 at the 2017 Hungarian Grand Prix with Sebastian Vettel winning the race and his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, following in second place while Valtteri Bottas of Mercedes claimed third after his teammate, Lewis Hamilton, was forced to follow team orders and allow him to pass on the final corner.
Vettel led start to finish – minus brief pit stop rotations – and was looking to make an easy race of it early on, building a big lead until steering wheel issues forced him to slow down his pace, allowing Raikkonen, Bottas and Hamilton to eventually close the gap near the end of the race. Coming into the final laps, Hamilton was in fourth and Bottas was in third but Bottas was the slowest of the quartet so Mercedes cut a deal with Bottas to have him allow the faster Hamilton by so that he could have a chance to try and overtake the Ferraris ahead of them – but that chance never materialized as Hamilton was unable to even get by Raikkonen, much less, Vettel, and so had to concede the podium position to Bottas to hold up his end of the bargain.
With the victory, Vettel extends his season driver’s standings lead to 14 points – with 202 points to Hamilton’s 188 – with Bottas trailing in a distant third with 169 points.
